The Exchange
by totallyrae
Summary: When an evil plan goes awry, Robin and Raven are stuck... in each other's bodies. A multitude of problems ensues. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

_**The more you get to know a person, the more attractive they become to you. Because everything beautiful you see on the inside of them, suddenly you're able to see on the outside of them too.**_

_- Unknown_

* * *

><p>Raven had to admit that she was an introverted person. She hated talking unless she really felt the necessity to, and she hated having to initiate conversation with someone else.<p>

Maybe that was one of the reasons why she never took a special liking to a certain dark-haired leader.

Robin was a very – how should she put it? – ah, yes, a very _unique_ person. What people saw on TV was a strong, confident leader who never minced his words. People saw him as the figurehead of the most capable crime-fighting team in Jump City, the man who never bowed down to fear or defeat, the man who everyone could feel comfortable with, the protector, the guardian, the warrior, the blah blah blah.

Maybe Robin was indeed all of these things. But to Raven, he was far from what people said he was.

Yes, confident leader, check. Courageous, check. Fighter, check. But a man you would always feel comfortable around?

Never.

On the surface, everyone knew Robin was outspoken. He never hesitated to tell others what he thought, he strategized like a commander, he formulated plans so brilliant that they worked almost every time. But if you just sat down with him in an empty room, you would realize how different he actually was.

That was the situation Raven found herself caught in at the present moment. Being the two (only) early-risers in the Tower, they would usually lounge in the empty hall doing their own things: Raven drinking her diluted tea, and Robin watching the news.

Nothing was supposed to be wrong with that. Raven was an introverted demoness; she liked silence and she avoided conversations with others like the plague.

But Robin, well, that guy, knew how to turn even one of her favourite things into something dreadfully… awkward.

Raven never believed in the term 'awkward silence' much. To her, silence was something so precious (especially with a certain green idiot who sounded like a loudhailer bouncing off the walls of the Tower so often) that she treasured it as much as her books.

But with Robin, the very silence she enjoyed was seriously way too awkward. He would sit there, motionless, his eyes fixed on the huge screen in front of him, his face a mask of nothing. And she would sit quietly at the kitchen table, sipping her tea. They never talked, not even _once_.

The silence was so awkward that she had to force herself to initiate conversation. _Open your mouth, Raven, and let the voice come…_

She managed a little half-hearted croak. Cursing inwardly, she tried again.

"Up so early?"

"Yeah."

"What's on the news?"

"Doctor Light."

"How long's the sentence?"

"Five years."

"That's not enough, is it?"

"No."

And the conversation ended. Raven heaved a small sigh of relief, having done her part. Conversations with Robin were usually made up of a maximum of five words per sentence, and she had already gotten used to that.

She allowed herself another quick glance at the leader again. He still hadn't moved. She wondered what exactly made him think so much. After every enemy was defeated, he would still have this serious pensive look on his face, as if there was something left undone. After his news-watching, he would coop himself up in his room staring at article after article, photograph after photograph, as if he was missing something.

Shrugging her shoulders, Raven calmly walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the rooftop for her early morning meditation. Wasn't her business anyway.

* * *

><p>In a dark alley somewhere in Jump City, a small figure sat against the wall, shoulders hunched.<p>

He stretched, his wooden joints creaking. Annoyed, he shifted his short stumpy legs such that they were spread out before him, his eyes studying the joints in dissatisfaction.

He hated being wooden.

It was kind of unfair. Nowadays toys were made up of much cooler stuff, like steel and plastic. Those didn't break unless they were really forced to. And they didn't creak. They were hardy and durable, and parents liked them because when they bought those toys for their kids they had an excuse not to buy anymore toys since they lasted so long.

But wooden toys? Always thrown out of the window for the pet dog to bite and salivate on. Disgusting.

The Puppet Master sighed, shifting his legs underneath him so that he wouldn't have to look at them anymore and wallow in self-deprecation and depression. Maybe that was the reason why he turned evil in the first place. No one treated him with respect. As a toy, he was thrown to the dogs in a matter of days, and after that, even the dogs ditched him for rubber balls. _Rubber balls. _He actually lost to a round, fat and mindless rolling object. An object that didn't have much of a life. (It was a living thing; it had a face stuck in a permanent smile, and it was much too proud to talk. The bastard.)

And now, when he had finally mustered up the courage to revolutionise the world with his mighty presence just to let everyone know the significance of wooden toys, the Teen Titans came and ruined his life again.

The plan had been perfect. Stealing the souls of the Titans (minus the two females just because of a _small_ mistake) and making the male Titans his walking puppets. It was so exciting to let them have a taste of how it's like being controlled against your own will. Even the thought made him smile.

But the plan had failed. Well, in a way. What everyone saw was how he had gotten his life sucked out of him and went back to becoming a useless puppet, but he knew they were wrong. He was the master of magic, dammit. Did they think he would die so easily? At least he had to make his escape less conspicuous, but at the same time stunning and unforgettable.

He did love his dramas, after all.

Remembering something, he dug into his pockets and gingerly pulled out two neatly tied bunches of cut hair, one violet and one jet black. A smile formed on his wooden face. In all the chaos, he had managed to cut off some hair from the back of Raven's head. As for Robin, his hair was easily obtainable considering the fact that he was his puppet for a short while. A little hysterical giggle burst out of the Puppet Master. These two souvenirs were his ultimate prizes. They were the best thing that ever happened to him. They were his sole source of salvation.

Getting up and heading further into the dark alley, the Puppet Master ignored the creaks his joints made as he approached the large drawing he had made on the ground with a crayon some rich man's kid had dumped on the street. He studied it with a hint of satisfaction. Not too bad, not too bad. It should work.

With extra care, he placed the two bunches of hair in the centre of his drawing, stepping away quickly with glee. Just the intonation, and he can accomplish his feat again. He can control them both again, but this time from their own bodies. Their souls would be his again.

Taking a deep breath, the Puppet Master started his chant. He closed his eyes, and allowed the words to come…

And then he heard the panting sound. Wait, a panting sound? What…? He looked up, and to his horror he saw his greatest enemy standing there, the bane of his life, the destroyer of his dreams. His eyes narrowed as he glared at the enemy, his mouth never ceasing to move as he continued with his intonation.

The German Shepherd stared back with equal animosity, although it was made up of less hatred but more confusion. It was a bit hard to understand what a strange dog toy was doing prancing around the alley squeaking like a mouse.

And then it saw the markings on the floor. They were _glowing_.

The dog inched closer to the markings, his nose sniffing frantically. Excitement and anticipation started to build up inside it. It could literally feel its soul singing in triumph now. This had to be some new territory, somewhere he can pee on, somewhere no other dogs will find… Now it will be the king of the dog kingdom, and it will have all the bitches it ever wanted…

The Puppet Master felt his wooden heart pounding madly inside his wooden chest (or maybe it was just his imagination). He couldn't stop now. He was already halfway through the ritual; if he stopped now, who knew what the consequences would be? He continued to chant, his eyes watching the dog fearfully. _Don't remove the hair… don't remove the hair… don't remove the hair…_

With a sweep, the dog pushed the two bunches of hair out of the centre of the circle and grabbed them with its jaws. Its head held high, the dog trotted off, planning to bury its new prizes somewhere.

Then it remembered something. Its head still lifted, the animal strutted to the centre of the marking. Lifting its head, it triumphantly peed on the spot where it had retrieved the hairs from. After a little sniffing, it nodded its head, satisfied with a job well done.

And off went Mr. Dog, new king of the dog kingdom, the Casanova of the bitches.

The Puppet Master screamed a scream that echoed throughout the dark alley, the sheer insanity and anger of it scaring away all the resting pigeons, cats and mice.

His scream was suddenly masked by a deafening clap of thunder. One huge water droplet fell and nearly drowned him.

Over Jump City, it started to rain.

* * *

><p>"Azarath Metrion Zinthos, Azarath Metrion… huh?"<p>

Raven opened her eyes in a mixture of puzzlement and annoyance as her meditation was interrupted by a loud clap of thunder.

She looked up at the sky, her eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. Great, now she was going to miss out on her early morning meditation again because of a stupid thunderstorm. She wouldn't have minded meditating through light rain (she liked dark skies anyway), but she knew better than to sit out on the top of a tall tower in the middle of a thunderstorm and get herself struck by lightning.

Wrapping her cloak around her, Raven got down from her cross-legged position in mid air and stalked towards the door leading back into the Tower. What a piss off. She would have to go back to her room and restart the whole process again, which is going to take _hours_…

And then she felt it. A slight woozy feeling. Nearly losing her balance, Raven grasped the handrail at the beginning of the stairway to prevent herself from falling there and then. Shaking her head to get rid of the feeling, she righted herself again and frowned. Were the Inner Ravens playing with her head again? That simply couldn't be. She thought she had appeased them already, so why were they…

She felt a large force push against her body, and the descending stairway was the last thing she saw before she blacked out.

* * *

><p>In the training room, a certain dark-haired leader suddenly slumped against the wall before sinking to the floor, motionless.<p>

* * *

><p>When she came to, she found herself staring at light bulbs. <em>Light bulbs?<em>

Oh, right. She must have fainted and Cyborg must have carried her to the medical room. _Shit, when I get my hands on those Inner Ravens… Hold on._ She got up and studied her surroundings slowly. This wasn't the medical room. In fact, this looked very much like… the training room? She turned to look at the punching bag, which was still swinging lifelessly as if someone had just punched it. Why was she here? She was pretty sure she had been somewhere at the top of the Tower…

She raised a gloved hand and rubbed her eyes. Now why did her arms feel so tired? She had just meditated. Was she getting unfit? Damn it, if she actually managed to get unfit so easily then she was in deep troub…

Gloves? Why was she wearing gloves? They're green. Why was she wearing green gloves? Her eyes travelled down to her body.

_Oh my god. Oh my god oh my god oh my god. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. What in the name of Azarath am I seeing? Oh shit shit shit shit SHIT_.

In absolute desperation, she sprinted towards the mirror in the corner of the room, staring at her reflection in absolute horror.

This couldn't be happening. _This couldn't be happening._

_Okay dream, if this is some kind of nightmare, it isn't funny. Get me another nightmare, please. Any one will do. Angry Raven? I forgive you, you can come back now. I desperately need you to make another nightmare for me because THIS ISN'T COOL. AT ALL._

Her hands reached up to touch her chiselled face, and it fingered the mask plastered against her eyes. She started to shake her head in denial as she registered her traffic light suit and her chunky metal boots, inching away from the mirror ever so slowly.

She was staring at Robin in the mirror.

With a gasp (why was her gasp so low-pitched all of a sudden?), she stumbled towards the doorway of the training room, repeatedly pinching herself to wake up from this horrible dream. Her thoughts wild and disoriented, she yanked open the door and nearly collapsed on herself again.

Standing in the doorway, with a look as shocked and horrified as hers, was _herself_. Raven number 2 stared at her with a look of absolute confusion, her cloak bunched up awkwardly in one fist, her eyes wide.

When Raven number 2 opened her mouth, the real Raven wanted an asteroid to appear and obliterate her very existence.

"Are you… in my body?"

* * *

><p><strong>Please let me know what you think, reviews are greatly appreciated!<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you… in my body?"

Raven couldn't seem to find any response to that question. She considered "_yeah duh I mean who else will wear this ugly thing" _or _"no kidding, I'm just dressed in a Robin suit because today is Dress Up Like Robin Day, how d'you guess?" _or even –

What. The. Hell. Was. She. Even. Thinking.

This was just ridiculous. Here she was, stuck in her team mate's _body_, and she was actually thinking of a humorous response to a question that very aptly described the shit she was currently stuck in.

She didn't think any type of curse words would suffice. She was ready to just bury a hole in the ground and die.

This was impossible. This was _fucking _impossible.

_Oh my god. It's like me and Starfire all over again._

At her silence, she started to see his face (this was so weird, staring at your own face without having to look at a mirror) change from a shell-shocked expression to that of denial, and then to that of undisguised horror. And did she see… disgust?

Before she could allow Robin to open his mouth and say something with _her _voice again, Raven grabbed him by the arm and all but yanked him into the training room, slamming the door with her other palm in the process. For extra measure, she locked the door.

She had to regain her composure again. All this was just –

"A bad, bad nightmare," Robin whispered in her voice, his back against the wall and his hands reaching up to his head in denial. She flinched. Hearing her voice utter those words without her having any control of it made her feel _extremely _uncomfortable.

To aggravate her dread for the horrors set to befall upon them, the punching bag still swinging uselessly in the corner exploded in an impressive show of sponge and rubber.

Horrified, she watched as Robin stared at his – no wait, _her_ – hands in shock, the black aura around them refusing to fade. As quickly as she could, she leaped forward and grabbed his wrists with her own gloved hands, staring at his violet eyes.

"Look, I don't know what's going on, but I need you to focus your mind on something that brings you peace, alright? What brings you peac – "

The mirror panel on the opposite end of the room suddenly shattered.

"Hey! _Peace_, alright? You know what's peace? Calm, tranquillity! Not anxiety! Peace!" Raven yelled over the noise, her fists still grabbing Robin's wrists tightly.

Robin struggled weakly against her iron-like grip, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "Okay! Okay, I'm getting it, peace, peace, _dammit_. How the hell do you get this under contro – "

Another mirror shattered.

"C'mon, Boy Wonder, you can do better than thi – "

"Yeah, I'm trying to, alright?"

A light bulb burst.

"God you are so stupid! Peace, quiet, tranquillity! What's so hard abo – "

"Shut up, okay, you've been doing this for _years_, and hate to burst your bubble here, but I'm _human_, so I'm kind of NOT used to this sort of thing?"

"Seriously, Robin, all that stoned face stuff was just for show? You can't even keep emotions in check?"

"Quit scolding me unless you want me to tear down this whole goddamn tow – "

"Don't curse, it makes it worse!"

"Okay, okay! I'm not cursing, yeah? I'm just… breathing, okay, peace, quiet…"

Things gradually stopped exploding as Robin started to take in deep breaths, his eyes closed. Ever so slowly, Raven loosened her grip on Robin's wrists, wincing as she took in the deep red imprints she had made on them. They were _her_ wrists after all.

With a resigned sigh, she turned around and slumped down onto the floor next to Robin, her chest heaving from the exertion used to restrain Robin _and _screaming too much. Both of them sat in silence for a long while, taking in the damage of the nearly ruined training room.

"A bad nightmare it is," she muttered, pulling off her green gloves and flinging them onto the floor next to her. "Seriously, why do you even wear these things? They are unbearably stuffy."

He didn't reply for a while, but when he did, she could recognise a bit of the cocky tone returning. "You want me to start on this twenty pound gaudy belt you've got? If not, shut it about the gloves. At least they don't make you feel like you wear an anchor on your waist or something."

Raven opened her mouth, but closed it again. If she could, she would have rattled on about the ten million things that were wrong with Robin's outfit, but this just wasn't the time.

Robin seemed to have sensed that too. With a sigh, he propped himself up on his palms and turned to face her. "At least we've gotten through the whole you're-in-my-body-and-I'm-in-yours chaos without creating much damage – " He blatantly ignored Raven's pointed stare at the broken mirror shards scattered on the ground. " – So now, we've got to figure out how we are going to last the indefinite duration of this nightmare."

Raven threw up her hands in mock relief. "Wow, _finally_ we agree on something."

"Let's not do that, okay?"

"What?"

"The whole I-hate-you-and-I-know-you-hate-me thing. It's not going to help us at all. If we want to survive this, we've got to help each other, you know what I mean?"

Raven took a deep breath and nodded her head numbly. "You're the leader. Now what?"

She watched herself laugh exasperatedly and run a hand through her hair in the signature Robin gesture. "Now what? That's a really good question."

"Hold on," Robin sat up as if an idea had just occurred to him. Eyes alert, he turned to her. "That's a question I should be asking _you_."

"Huh? Me?"

"Yeah. This happened between you and Star, didn't it? You guys handled it pretty well. Now we just have to do the same thing and we'll be fine."

"It's easier than it sounds. Besides, I only have enough brain space to remember how to use both Starfire's abilities and my own. You want me to learn all that physical stuff from you overnight?"

"Training could solve that. Look at Star. She managed your powers pretty well. I'm pretty sure that if she can handle it, I shouldn't be much of a problem."

Raven gave it some thought. That made some sense. It was universal knowledge that Starfire had a significantly less amount of understanding when it came to learning new things as compared to other people (maybe except Beast Boy). And everyone knew the only inhuman thing about Robin was his sky-high IQ, so teaching him would probably be a lot easier.

But powers aside…

"Okay, say that works. But have you actually thought about… this?" Raven motioned to her own body and then to his. "Star and I… we're both girls. A body switch would have been okay, I mean, the only difference was our behaviourisms. Look at us, we're both – "

"Of different sex? I figured." Robin stood up. "We'll just have to deal with it."

"Oh yeah, nice plan. May I ask how are we going to go about this awesome scheme?"

"We'll have to room together."

"Wow, great, sounds really thought through… wait, what?"

"You heard me. It's the only thing we can do. When we do stuff like bathe, or change, or whatever, we'll just have to, you know, help each other?"

Raven's mouth dropped open. "Okay, I'm not sure if I should be worried that such a sick idea came out of your mouth so easily or whether I should be worried that the mighty Boy Wonder actually couldn't come out with a better idea."

"How about this: try not to be worried at all?"

"You know, for someone with newly acquired demon powers, you sure control your emotions really well."

"I hope that's a compliment. This whole composure thing isn't easy."

"Trust me, I've been doing it for nineteen years."

"So, has this meaningless banter actually given you any new ideas?"

Raven couldn't seem to find any answer to that.

"I'm going to make a smart guess that it's a no. So we stick to my not-so-fabulous idea until you sprout a new one, yes?"

This was crazy. Everything about it was so wrong that Raven couldn't even begin to describe her horror. Having to exchange bodies with this… this guy spelled doom in so many ways. Firstly, he was a guy. Who knows when he might…

Okay, she's going to assume that Robin's an abnormal human being who doesn't have hormones, which was probably very true, come to think of it.

Secondly, this was one guy she could never understand for the life of her. How was she going to trust him with her _body_? And using _his_ body was incredibly awkward, in so many ways.

And thirdly, how were they going to -

_Oh my god. How could I forget?_

Scrambling to her feet, Raven reached forward and grabbed Robin's shoulder. "And what are we going to do about the Titans?"

Robin stiffened. Slowly, he turned around. "What do you think we should do?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking you that right?"

"Okay." He took a deep breath. "If you want my honest opinion, I… don't think we should let them know."

Raven's grip on his shoulder slackened. Oh well. She couldn't run away from the truth that telling the Titans would lead to nothing but trouble. "I guess," she sighed, turning away from Robin. "I just need to do something first."

"What?"

Raven walked to the middle of the training room and squatted, her arms circling her knees.

And then she let off a loud – but disturbingly low-pitched – yell of frustration.

* * *

><p>It took less than thirty seconds for them to hear Beast Boy and Cyborg's frantic thumping of the door.<p>

"Robin? What's going on?" Cyborg's muffled voice wafted in, tinged with worry.

His voice was later joined by Beast Boy's. "Yeah, I _swear_ I heard you break a vase in there or something too!"

Robin looked at Raven, an eyebrow raised. Realising their predicament, Raven hurriedly grabbed the gloves from the floor and pulled them back on. Taking a deep breath, both of them counted to three before Robin proceeded to open the door, sending the two titans stumbling clumsily into the room. Starfire glided in soon afterward.

Cyborg surveyed the damage, incredulous. "What the hell…?"

"Friend Raven, you are here too?" Starfire questioned quizzically, her eyes bright and shining as they fixated on Robin.

"Yeah, man, why are you here too?" Beast Boy asked, bumping his shoulder against Robin's playfully. "I mean, if you wanted to spend some time alone with our leader, his room is always – "

Robin proceeded to smack him on the head, her trademark emotionless expression plastered on his face. "Nothing like that."

Raven smiled inwardly. He was picking up the acting well enough. Or maybe he wasn't even acting, since unreadable expressions were his forte.

Cyborg stalked in front of them, his face angry. Uh oh. "Guys, do you know how much effort was taken into buildin' this room? How the hell did you destroy it till it looks like some war zone?"

Raven realised he was staring at her, expecting a reply. Swallowing uncomfortably, she lifted her head in what she hoped was a confident way and replied nonchalantly, "Um, some things just, um, went out of control. Yeah."

Cyborg eyed her suspiciously. "What went out of control?"

"It was my fault," Robin spoke up. "I was helping him with some new form of training and I caused a bit of damage."

Luckily for them, Cyborg didn't seem to bother about the obvious loopholes in their explanation, but rather he was too angry to even consider their argument rationally. "A bit? A BIT? Don't scare me, man, if this is what you call a bit then I don't want you training anywhere near my garage."

Raven tried a weak, apologetic laugh, but having years of non-experience made it sound like a whimper. Robin frowned at her, probably pissed that she was making him look like some wimp.

"Alright," Robin said again, an unconsciously cheerful expression lighting up his face before he quickly toned it down again at Raven's glare. "Rav – I mean, Robin and I have some stuff to handle, so we'll be leaving you guys, yup, so see you later, bye bye!"

In one swift movement, Raven found herself being pulled out of the door and back into the living room, past the other three's confused stares.

Just as she was being dragged into the direction of the rooms, she suddenly felt the most horrible feeling. She stopped in her tracks, her sudden stop yanking Robin back.

"What?" He asked irritably, anxious to get to one of their rooms. "If you have any questions, we'll just settle it in the ro – "

"I need to go to the toilet."

" – om, what?"

Raven struggled to fight down her embarrassment which she knew was already creeping all over her – um, his – face. "I told you. I need the toilet."

Robin pressed a palm to his face in exasperation, taking deep breaths to prevent his emotions from going into overdrive. "This is… really not the time for this."

"Yeah, I know," Raven snapped. "But if you want your body to go leaking along the corridor for the 'indefinite duration of this nightmare', then fine by me. It's not _my_ body, anyway. And why do I need to pee? Maybe because someone drank a bucket of water before training?"

After a moment of hesitation, Robin gave in. Giving her a pointed glare, he marched her to the toilet in his room. Then they both stood there awkwardly, facing each other.

An eyebrow raised, Robin motioned to the toilet bowl. "Go ahead, pee."

Raven shot a glare at him. "Would you mind not saying it so blatantly?" She murmured through gritted teeth.

"What else do you want me to say? Oh, sorry, if madam would excuse me, would you please urinate?"

She resisted the urge to strangle him there and then. "Yeah, sure, Boy Wonder, if you want me exposing all your private parts."

Robin shifted uncomfortably. "Fine. Okay, close your eyes."

"What?"

"I said close your eyes."

Raven did as she was told. She tried not to register whatever went on afterwards, but she knew it was going to remain etched in her memory as one of the worst moments of her life.

* * *

><p>Moments later, they were sitting on Robin's bed forlornly. They hadn't talked for the past twenty minutes after they had gotten out of the washroom, and rightly so. If he said anything else right after that, Raven would voluntarily jump out of the window and fall to her much-welcomed death.<p>

And then she realised that Robin was fiddling with his shoulder in an annoyed fashion, his hand constantly reaching under the cloak to adjust something on his arm.

Wordlessly, Raven lifted the cloak to take a look, before sighing in frustration. This couldn't be happening to her. It was literally one awkward moment leading to another.

Clearing her throat hesitantly, Raven motioned to his shoulder. "Your bra strap is falling. Shorten it."

Robin snatched his hand away from his shoulder as if burned. "My… bra strap?"

"Yeah. You have to shorten it. The reason why it's falling is because it's too long."

"And how do I shorten it?"

Raven reached forward into his leotard to help him adjust it, but she realised that her gloves were in the way. Exasperated, she yanked them off and leaned forward further so that she could get the strap shortened.

Uncomfortable at the close proximity, Robin started to lean backwards awkwardly, his hands feebly fending her off as she leaned even closer to his shoulder. Slapping his hands away, Raven mumbled, "Stop moving, dammit, or I won't be able to fix that strap for you."

"Make it quick," Robin muttered through gritted teeth, his face as turned away from her as possible. Raven ignored his struggles. Just a little more, and she would be done…

This was when the doors suddenly swished open, and the two found themselves the object of Cyborg's shocked stare, his figure standing frozen in the doorway, his jaws dropped open.

_Fuck._


	3. Chapter 3

Cyborg was a guy who didn't really like to mind his own business. Maybe it was because he had become so accustomed to living with two of the most secretive people in the world (i.e. Robin and Raven) that he found the temptation to probe into other people's business too alluring to ignore.

Maybe that was also the reason why he actually made an effort to remember the Titans' passwords to their respective rooms. And maybe that was _also_ the reason why he decided to open Robin's door to investigate the two titans' unexplained behaviour.

He was _not_ a busybody. He was just being… concerned.

Yeah, concerned. The word that solved all problems.

Actually, Cyborg had expected to see something unexpected because when it came to these two he _always _expected to see something unexpected. But he hadn't expected to see… this.

Robin and Raven. On the bed. His hand _under_ her leotard.

_BREAKDOWN. UNABLE TO PROCESS INFO. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…..crack._

In direct English translation from computer language, this was what Cyborg was thinking: _WHAT. THE. FUCK._

The three of them stayed frozen in their positions for a good few minutes, the two titans desperately trying to figure out a way to untangle themselves from each other in the least conspicuous manner possible, and Cyborg trying to get over all the whatthefuckery that was whizzing through his head.

It was a long while before Cyborg spoke. "How... long?"

His question was greeted by silence. He watched uncomfortably as Robin slowly pulled back from Raven, his face unreadable. Raven just sat there, staring at him with an intense gaze as if she was considering something. He couldn't tell what, though.

Then Raven propped a leg up and rested an arm on it, still studying him as if he were some lab experiment. "How long what?"

"How long have you guys been… dating?" Could she quit staring at him like that? _They _were the ones who should be feeling self-conscious here!

At the question, both titans perked up and immediately started to protest.

"We're not…"

"That's just ridiculous - "

"We'll never – "

"Possibility of that is literally zero – "

" – go out, I rather date a potato – "

" – can't believe you actually said that – "

Robin's clock exploded with a bang, and Cyborg noticed that Robin was shooting Raven with a glare so hard he thought she would be the one exploding next. That was weird. Raven _never_ lost control of herself like that, and Cyborg knew that Robin had one alarm clock too many to treasure any one of them this much.

Cyborg raised his hands in defeat. "Okay, okay! I get it! You guys aren't dating, alright?"

The other two visibly relaxed, Raven more than Robin. _What the…?_

"Now you guys are going to tell me what's really going on here. No lies. And don't give me that bullshit about privacy because this sure as hell isn't some – "

"Alright, we'll tell you," Raven cut in, swinging her legs over the bed and resting her fists between them.

_Strange, that really looks like the way Robin would sit – _

"We are just friends. Nothing more. Just normal friends - "

Cyborg laughed sardonically. "Yeah, I'm sure sticking your hand into another girl's top is something 'normal friends' would do – "

" - with benefits."

" – yeah, funny, wait, WHAT?"

He watched, tongue tied, as even Robin jerked up and stared at Raven in shock.

_MAJOR BREAKDOWN. COMPUTER UNABLE TO FUNCTION. ATTEMPTING TO START SHUTTING DOWN NOW. SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE - _

Raven continued on as if she hadn't been interrupted, the words flooding out of her mouth as if she was in a rush to get them all out of her system. "Yeah, friends with benefits. We aren't together, we are just in a… sexual relationship. Purely sexual. Nothing more than that."

Cyborg struggled to regain his wits, but it was literally impossible. He couldn't even seem to move his fingers properly, let alone his mouth. "W-w-w-with b-b-benefits. S-s-s-ex."

Raven didn't reply; she just nodded. Affixing him with a cool stare, she said quietly, "Now you know. Congratulations. Now I hope you don't go around telling the whole Tower because we don't want the necessary attention. Can you do that?"

"I-I-I can't believe you actually – "

"We all have needs."

"Raven, you are a fucking demone – "

"A female one."

"And Robin? Come on, tell me she's lying. I saw that look on your face just now. You obviously don't buy any of this eith – "

"It's true."

"- er, what?"

"It's as he – I mean, she said, we have sex, w-we feel happy, that's it."

"You don't sound convincing at all."

Robin hesitated, before taking a deep breath and glaring at Cyborg as if he had done something wrong. "You want proof? I'll show you."

In one swift movement, Robin's hand had shot out and grabbed… that area on Raven's chest.

Raven flinched violently, her eyes wide open. Robin's curtains exploded in a shower of fabric, but none of the titans paid the explosion any attention.

Cyborg's vision went black instantly.

* * *

><p>Raven sat with her arm placed on Robin's chest, her breath held. She tried not to look at Robin, who was now sitting upright on the bed, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. She would deal with that later. Now, she had to deal with Cyborg.<p>

Dammit, why did that stupid asshole decide to barge into the room _now_, of all times?

Now wasn't the time to worry. She kept her gaze on Cyborg, watching for his reaction.

She had expected the worst, but things turned out pretty well, actually. She watched as Cyborg's red eye dimmed to a duller shade, his human eye rolling up to his head as the blue lights on his arms and legs flickered and faded. In less than a minute, the giant robotman was already standing stock still, his face expressionless as his body powered down.

Heaving a massive sigh of relief inwardly, Raven lowered her arm from Robin's chest. "I… think he suddenly lost power out of shock."

It took a considerable time for Robin to reply. "Yeah? H-he did?"

Raven turned to him. "You okay?"

The leader laughed bitterly. "For someone who has just been molested, yeah."

"I did _not _molest you!" Raven snapped indignantly. "Well, technically I didn't. It's my body I was touching, so stop acting like you're the victim."

"It's my body that was touching you. You've contaminated me."

"Oh please – "

"Can we get off this topic? I don't really want to talk about it. I'm a rape victim here."

Raven rolled her eyes. Trust the leader to behave like such a _jerk_. She was obviously at the losing end in more ways than one.

Okay, she didn't really want to talk about it too.

After some uncomfortable fidgeting where both of them tried not to touch each other, Robin swung himself off the bed and walked towards the frozen Cyborg. With a little forced chuckle, he tapped something on Cyborg's right arm.

Raven stared as a metal panel of buttons emerged from the area Robin just tapped. "Are you going to explain to me how you actually did that?"

Robin didn't reply. Swiftly, he entered a sequence onto the panel and pressed a few more buttons Raven couldn't see. Once he was done, he tapped Cyborg's arm again and the panel went back into its original position.

"So are you going to exp – "

With a sudden sound, Cyborg started up again, the blue lights on his body flickering to life. However, this time his red eye didn't seem to light up like it always did.

"What…?"

With a few whirring noises, Cyborg lifelessly turned around and marched out of the room, never turning back as he clomped down the hallway towards his own room.

Robin closed the room door and turned around triumphantly. "Tada."

"What the hell did you just do?"

"I sent him back to his room. He'll wake up in a few hours time without remembering a thing."

"How did you…?"

"I figured out how his system works. I know he's been memorising all our room passwords for his own benefit; I just wanted a bit of fair play."

"Is this the first time you've actually done this?"

Robin returned her question with a smile so creepy she never wanted to see that on her own face again.

And then something came to her.

"So the whole 'friends-with-benefits' thing was something you thought you could use to shock him into shutting down?"

"It was worth a try."

"What if it didn't work? If I didn't… do that, he would live for the rest of his life thinking we were sex partners!"

"As I said, it was worth a try."

"It was a pretty risky try you took."

"Risky, yes. But how else could we have explained this whole thing? 'Oh, I saw a housefly under Raven's bra strap, so I decided to dig in and kill it.' "

Raven considered the thought. That was true, no matter how much she didn't want to admit it. Cyborg was smart enough to know when you were lying if you were telling a really bad lie.

She regained her monotonous tone again. "Alright. I'm guessing this whole keep-it-from-the-Titans thing is going to be a lot harder than we thought it would be."

Robin ruffled his hair in annoyance. "True that. So now for starters, we have to act on the way we behave. You," he pointed a finger at her accusingly, "should seriously stop talking with that half-dead expression on my face. If I'm going to encourage my team members I don't want them thinking they're being led by a zombie."

Raven scoffed. "Of course, and you should quit looking so expressive with my face. And stop exploding things just because you feel like it."

Robin pointedly ignored her remark. "And, we'll have to figure out how to get back into our own bodies."

"The last time with Puppet Master, we just destroyed his control. Isn't he dead now?"

"Yeah, we saw it. And even if it _was _him, he doesn't have control over our bodies, which most probably means that something went wrong." Robin sighed. "Shit, this would have been so much easier if we actually knew _why_ we're like this in the first place."

Raven paused. "There could be one solution."

Robin perked up. "Solution?"

"Actually, solutions. I've got a couple of books we could refer to. I have no idea how we ended up like this, but if it's a sort of demonic work I'm bound to have the answers."

"You have books on body switches?"

"Are you questioning my reading tastes?"

"Obviously. I thought you were the novel kind of person."

"I'm open to different genres."

"Like body switches?"

"I'm a demoness. I deserve to know anything that could possibly be demon-related."

Robin shrugged his shoulders in defeat. "Alright then, let's check out your treasure trove of books."

* * *

><p>"You call this a couple of books?" Robin groaned, picking forlornly at the shelf of books against the wall in Raven's room. "This is a freaking library, I swear."<p>

"Stop complaining and help me search for anything that's relevant."

"I've picked out at least twenty books and I either get potions made with toad eyeballs and bat wings or spells that require a circle of happy demons prancing around a bonfire."

"You're exaggerating."

A pause. "Yeah, a bit. But demons and witches… you guys all give me the same vibes."

Raven chucked a book at Robin's head, which narrowly missed. Her reflexes were faster with this body, and if he hadn't been as agile as he normally was she was pretty sure he would have gotten hit.

Her eyes returned to the book she was holding. Most of these books were pretty useless because they required Azarathean solutions for Azarathean curses. And she knew every curse by heart; this one was definitely not one of them. Replacing the book in its original position, she sighed in frustration. This was never going to work.

Robin gave up as well and slumped onto a chair. "Great. I've just filled my head with knowledge about rituals and spells instead of anything vaguely useful."

"At least we now know none of these solutions work. We'll just have to figure out another one."

Robin suddenly sat up as if something came to mind. He hesitated for a long while before replying. "There is… one solution."

"Enlighten me."

"Technically, it's not a solution, but it always works on TV."

"On TV? Are you serious?"

"We've just wasted our time reading a library full of useless books. I'm sure we can waste our time on something else. As long as we are making an effort to do something."

Raven gave up, shrugging her shoulders. "Whatever. What are you thinking of?"

"Well, in the movies, they always… kiss?"

"Kiss?" Raven nearly spluttered. "I rather dance around ten bonfires."

"We don't have time for snide remarks."

"And we don't have time to relive some stupid fairy tale."

"You've got something against fairies?"

"Is that really relevant?"

"Look, it'll be over in seconds. We are just going to try and… see what happens." Robin smiled weakly. "I mean, you've already molested me."

"I did _not_ molest you. I just… touched that… area."

"To-may-to, to-mah-to. Come here."

Getting up from his position on the chair, Robin pulled her towards him. It felt weird, having to look at herself with such a determined face. And the fact that her own body had enough strength to yank Robin's with so much force.

They stood awkwardly for a moment, still afraid to touch each other. Raven found herself staring at her own face in wonder. _So this is how I actually look like when I'm embarrassed? Honestly, I think I need to look into my mirror more…_

"Hey, listen, I'm amazed at how handsome I am too, but I'm keeping that to myself. So would you quit staring at your own face like it's the first time you've seen it?" Robin scoffed, breaking her gaze by smirking at her.

With her own face.

_Ew._

She swore that she would never smirk again in her lifetime.

Clearing her throat, Raven tried feebly for a start. "Okay, so how are we going to do it? Are we going to just peck or are we – "

Robin studied her carefully. "We'll know when we get there. Close your eyes," he muttered.

Raven complied, and he leaned in. She barely registered the feel of contact between her lips and his, because it all happened in a flash.

Pulling away quickly, both of them stared at each other, willing for something magical to happen…

…which didn't.

Both of them sighed simultaneously. Even though this solution seemed ridiculous from the start, Raven had hoped that a miracle would happen. Every minute in Robin's body was just pure torture.

"Any other smart ideas, boss?" she asked resignedly, collapsing onto the chair and leaning her head back in exhaustion.

Robin put a finger to his lips, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. "Maybe it wasn't deep enough."

"What?"

He turned to look at her again. "We didn't do it properly. Maybe if we tried something deeper, something would have happened."

"I…" Raven cut herself off with a deep breath. Anything was possible. She was on the brink of desperation. Even if Robin had asked her to dance with Beast Boy's underwear on her head, she would have done so willingly. "Okay. Let's do it."

"Alright. You first?"

"Me? Doesn't the guy usually do it first?"

Another smirk. "Raven, I'm not the guy in this anymore."

"Stop manipulating the situation to your advantage – "

Before she knew it, his lips were on hers.

Another nightmare she swore she was never going to relive again if she could help it.


	4. Chapter 4

It seemed to take a million years before night finally fell. When it did, Raven felt somewhat… better. As a demoness, she loved the dark, simply because the dark brought peace and a chilling tranquillity which she enjoyed very much. Of course, night was also the time when she got dreams, which were quite annoying sometimes.

And ever since that Robin-going-OCD-thing on Slade a few years back, her dreams had become pretty crazy. Even before this incident, of course.

Robin's head was rather funny. It worked in wild, over-the-top ways, so the dreams it managed to conjure up were usually made up of a mess of things the leader liked to preoccupy himself with.

Oh boy, he loved to preoccupy himself with _a lot_ of things.

Robin could dream about fighting ten villains at one go _and_ eating a huge pizza at the same time. And then suddenly Slade would come prancing into the dream with pizzas on both hands, dressed like a delivery boy. And _then_ they would be fighting again, pizzas thrown aside and forgotten.

Sometimes she saw the titans in his dream too. Those entertained her – sometimes – because Robin could actually dream up ridiculous things like Beast Boy eating meat and Cyborg going vegan.

She particularly hated the ones which involved her wearing pink though. Why the hell would he even dream of such a thing? Sick, perverse man.

Raven shook her head and glared at the walls of Robin's room, now – finally – alone. Robin had headed to her room even though she had strongly protested against that. It was _her _room. She had loads of private things in there. She didn't want him poking his nose through her stuff, especially her books. And her mirror. Raven cringed as she remembered what Cyborg and Beast Boy had gotten themselves into after messing around with that. While she trusted Robin more than the other two idiots, she knew what Robin was capable of if he got hold of her inner secrets. Cyborg was enough proof of that.

However, Robin had just responded to her protests with, "So you want Cyborg to come around thinking that I spend the nights in your room on a daily basis? Or would you like to stick to my original suggestion of rooming together? I mean, it's really up to you."

She had absolutely no answer to that.

Therefore, she gritted her teeth and allowed him permission to use her room for a _limited amount of time only_, to which he just smirked and walked off without a word.

He could be such a bastard sometimes. No, not sometimes. All the time.

So that was how she found herself sitting on Robin's bed, glaring at the pillow as if it had done something wrong.

Of course it had done something wrong. It was Robin's pillow.

Taking a deep breath, she crossed her legs and prepared to meditate. Who said being in a different body didn't allow you to meditate? Of course you could. She was going to meditate if she damn well felt like it.

Oh, that's right. She's going to have to teach Robin how to meditate. If he ever dared to destroy her room by mistake, she's going to jump off a cliff and let Robin's body plummet to its horrible death. Smiling sadistically at the thought, she closed her eyes and waited for the inner peace to come.

It didn't. She didn't know if it was because she was in this human body, but she just couldn't seem to concentrate. She couldn't seem to focus on achieving the inner peace because there were so many things crowding her mind. Cursing inwardly, she swung her legs over the bed and sighed. Being in Robin's body was bad enough, but this? She couldn't even meditate! Stupid Robin and his stupid body, and just to add on to that his stupid pillow was annoying the crap out of her because it was so ridiculously hard. Who the hell sleeps on a rock all night? Oh right. _Robin_.

Muttering exasperatedly, she flopped onto the bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin. They smelled like… cologne. Raven raised an eyebrow. This was weird. She expected Robin to be the type who never took care of himself (since he loved to beat himself up in the gym, the crazy man), so she kind of expected his bed to reek of manly sweat. But she was actually smelling cologne right now.

Raven felt slightly uncomfortable. From all her experience with males (i.e. Cyborg, Beast Boy and uh, Trigon), this was actually the first time she found a guy who made the effort to smell nice. Now why hadn't she noticed this before? Why did he, of all people, actually smell good?

There were only two answers to that. Either Robin was a playboy out to impress girls, or he was gay.

Raven was inclined to think the latter. He never did particularly impress her.

With these thoughts in mind, Raven found herself drifting into sleep faster than she ever had in a long time.

* * *

><p>That night, Raven dreamt of unicorns and rainbow-coloured mushrooms. Pixies were dancing around the mushrooms and eating lollipops as they danced.<p>

Nah, as if. That was most probably Starfire's dream.

In truth, Raven dreamt of something much, much worse. She was embarrassed to even dream it in the first place. It actually managed to beat all the other nightmares involving Trigon.

In her dream, she saw Robin wearing her bra.

It was mind-numbing-ly horrifying and crazy. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She was much too revolted to even speak. And as he turned around, she gasped in astonishment as he slowly peeled off his mask to reveal…

Violet eyes. _Her_ eyes.

Backing up in horror, Raven watched as he gave her his signature smirk and raised a hand towards her. She tried summoning her powers to stop him, but when she did, the black aura appeared around him instead, and now he was gliding towards her, smirking all the while…

With a gasp, Raven shot up, beads of sweat dotting her forehead. She clutched her head quickly and shook it, willing those horrible thoughts out of her head. Her fingers lightly brushed against the mask plastered on her face, and she froze.

What if… she removed the mask to see his eyes? He wouldn't know, right? He _was_ in her room, after all. And if he was going to go around snooping, she might as well do a bit of research of her own.

Holding down her curiosity, Raven got out of bed and walked towards the mirror, her fingers slowly pulling off the mask on her face. Just a little more, and then…

"Don't touch my mask."

Raven jumped, whirling around to see Robin sitting forlornly on a chair in the other corner of the room, his violet eyes glaring at her with a burning intensity that she never knew she was capable of. With a stretch of his arm, Robin flicked the light switch right next to him, flooding the room with light.

Raven blinked, allowing her eyes to get accustomed to the sudden influx of brightness in the room. "Robin?" She immediately pushed down the guilty feeling that was rising up her chest. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I should be asking you what the hell were _you_ doing."

She paused. "It's not much of your – "

"Business? Damn right it is. It's my body, and my eyes."

"Not for now, it isn't."

Robin sighed exasperatedly and ran a hand through his hair. Raven raised an eyebrow questioningly. The leader seemed to be struggling with himself, which was very unlike him. She attributed it to the difficulty of controlling her powers.

She decided to prod him further. "So what are you doing here? You came to check up on me and make sure I kept your precious eyes a secret?"

"Of course not," Robin snapped immediately. Glaring at her once more, he pointed a finger at her accusingly. "You. Stop dreaming of me."

Raven gave a start. "How…?" And then it came to her. He had attained her powers. Even though there was a body switch, the bond between the both of them was still there. Her body could still read his body's dreams.

And now he was feeling the effects of it.

Raven dealt with the situation in the best way she knew how. "Deal with it," she said monotonously, folding her arms together.

She watched in satisfaction as the leader shot her another glare. But if there was one thing the leader was good at, it was bursting her momentary bubbles. "When you are dreaming of me? In your b – undergarments?"

Raven blushed a little, but fought it down. "You were probably dreaming of it yourself. Stop pinning the blame on me."

Robin's face relaxed and the smirk returned. "Don't give me that bullshit. I can tell when the dreams aren't mine, just like how you could tell the same when you still had your own body."

She blushed even harder, and she felt blood rushing into her cheeks. Damn it, why did humans have so much blood? "Fine. Okay. I admit I saw you in my, um, clothes. Happy? Now can you go back to sleep so that I can – "

"I can't do that. You molest me, then you dream perverted things about me, and now you expect me to sleep?"

"How was _anything_ I dreamt perverted – " Raven stopped herself. "And when are you going to stop the whole molestation thing? For the last time, I didn't – "

"I'm not taking the risk. I sure as hell can't sleep. I bet you can't too."

"What makes you think I can't sleep?"

"Oh, so dreaming of me makes you sleep. Aren't I the sweet lullaby."

"Excuse me while I go somewhere to empty the contents of your stomach."

"You are _not_ puking with my face."

"You sound really childish."

"We're the Teen Titans, not the Adult Titans." Robin paused. "Fancy a drink?"

Raven rolled her eyes at the irony in his statement. "So I'm assuming your 'drink' means orange juice? Sorry, I'm the tea kind of person."

Robin shook his head. "If we are going to force ourselves to sleep again, I think we need to lay off the caffeine."

"Sleeping pills?"

"They don't work. On my body, at the very least. You'll get used to the insomnia soon."

"So what now?"

"We use our last resort." Robin smirked again and walked over to the cupboard, where he retrieved two cans of beer. Holding it up, he affixed Raven with a steady gaze. "The perfect cure to insomnia."

* * *

><p>Whatever happened next went past in a blur. Neither Robin nor Raven could remember what actually went on, maybe because what started off as a simple drink became an addictive drinking fest. Raven wasn't a drinker; that was universal knowledge, but the desperation to force herself back to sleep so as to escape from the horrors of reality broke her resolve. She knew Robin himself wasn't a drinker, since he was always so upright and all, so it surprised her when she found he did actually own some alcohol.<p>

But she was going to conveniently forget the fact that those were most probably confiscated from Cyborg.

Whatever the case was, both parties were so new to the whole drinking thing that it was no surprise that they fell entirely drunk nearly immediately after they started.

Since Robin refused to allow any drinking in his own room ("I'm not as liberal as BB"), the two had decided to head to the roof. It was the most peaceful place in the whole Tower, and the chances of anyone else being there was close to zero.

Or so they thought.

An hour after they started, Beast Boy decided that a trip to the roof top was necessary because he wanted to hold a general meeting with his fellow birds.

It wasn't that hard to lead the birds, actually. Being the only green bird in existence in Jump City, the birds naturally thought he was a leader sent from bird heaven, a messenger of salvation for the much under-appreciated species. Beast Boy had granted them loads of things; new nests, more trees, fatter worms, fewer bird-killing humans, revenge of the chickens… But he had never really done anything about it.

But the birds being peanut-brained still believed. Faith kept them together.

And so the self-claimed prophet held monthly meetings at the roof top so that he could bore himself out with the complaining chirps of the birds just so that he could gain their loyalty. You never know when a bird army might come in handy.

The first thing Beast Boy heard was a loud cackle from the roof top. _What the… a witch?_

The green changeling held his breath, careful not to make any more noise with his footsteps. There was a witch on the top floor. He had to kill her before the others came. This was his time to shine. Then he will be exalted, and Raven or Starfire would kiss him on the cheek.

The thought was simply irresistible. Smiling grimly, he inched up ever so slowly, his arms held tautly at his sides, ready to transform into a fierce dinos –

Until two of the most unexpected people came into sight. With the most unexpected behaviour.

Raven was the source of the creepy cackling, her back against a nearby wall, her legs spread out before her. Her face was flushed, and she was pointing at Robin as if something was wrong with him.

And _Robin_. The said leader was sitting down too, not laughing, just staring solemnly at the ground.

Okay, this was the weirdest thing Beast Boy had ever seen.

Walking forward, he prodded Robin with one wary foot. "Oi." Prod. Prod. Poke. "Oi."

Robin turned his head upwards and glared at Beast Boy through his mask. It was a while before he said something. "Yes, prick?"

Beast Boy flinched, and instantly felt a little hurt. Robin calling him a prick? He _never_ called him a prick. In fact, only Raven ever did that.

Beast Boy returned Robin's question with as mean an answer as he could muster. "Who're you calling prick, _prick_?"

Robin stared at him for a moment, then looked away. Beast Boy wanted to protest, but Raven immediately cut in, waving her right arm between the two of them. "Gosh, guys, why the hostility?" She sighed loudly, pushing Beast Boy away from the sullen Robin. "Y'know, this is the precise reason why sometimes we just can't get along. You gotta cooperate, y'know, that's what a team is for. Yeah, that's what a _fucking_ team is for. All you assholes, pissing me off everyday with your stupid fighting over stupid stuff, I swear if I hear one more insult thrown at each other I'll – "

"You look like a mushroom, kinda." Robin slurred quietly, cutting Raven off in the middle of her ridiculous speech that made absolutely no sense to Beast Boy.

But this was getting kinda interesting, he had to admit. The way things were going, Beast Boy could already see some potential scandals making their way into the conversation, as long as he waited long enough. First, Robin and Raven get piss-drunk. Check. Second, Robin and Raven quarrel. Nearly check. Third, Robin and Raven make out. Not yet? And last, Beast Boy takes a photo to blackmail them with for the rest of their lives. SUCCESS.

With a little self satisfied smirk, Beast Boy settled himself down between the two.

Meanwhile, the two titans were still talking.

"Mushroom? How the _fuck_ do I resemble a mushroom?"

Beast Boy winced a little. When did Raven become so vulgar?

"Your head. It's black. With spikes everywhere. Like a sea urchin." Robin muttered. "I _hate_ sea urchins."

Beast Boy arched an eyebrow. Raven didn't have black spiky hair. That was Ro –

"Well, at least I don't look like Sailormoon with a bad dye job."

"I dunno who Whatevermoon is."

"She's some… girl."

"Your girlfriend?"

_What the… Raven's a lesbian?_

Raven emitted a bitter laugh. "If she existed in real life, I could use her as a fighter."

_Oh god, that's just sick. That's so perverted. _

"You only think about fighting. Your whole world's about fighting. You should get a life."

Beast Boy decided to cut in then. Both of them were just being incoherent, and he didn't have much time to wait for the make-out-stake-out. "Hey, Rob, that's funny because the one who loves to fight is actually y – "

Raven shot him a glare. "Funny? What's funny? Did I say something funny?"

Robin shook his head. "Nah. No way. Didn't hear anything funny. Did you, BB? I certainly didn't. Nope, didn't. Do I look like I'm laughing?"

"Guys, I haven't even – "

"Gone to pee? Go, pee." Robin said, shooing Beast Boy away with a hand half-heartedly. "Or in someone's words, 'If you would excuse me, would you please urinate?'"

"Gosh, Rob, that's quite gross – "

And Raven cut in again. "Gross? What's gross? Did I say something gross?"

"Nah. No way. Didn't hear anything gross. Did you, BB? I certainly didn't."

"_Fuck,_ guys – "

"Who the fuck said you could say fuck?" Raven snapped. "Told you idiots not to fight, and here we go fighting again – "

"Nah. No way. Didn't fight. Did you, BB? I certainly didn't. Do I look like I'm fighting?"

Beast Boy threw his hands up in frustration and stalked to the other side of the rooftop. He should have seen this coming. Even when drunk, both titans were just plain _boring_.

And he was getting really late for his meeting. Stretching his arms and yawning, he climbed onto the ledge and closed his eyes, allowing himself to transform into as magnificent a green cockatoo as a green cockatoo could be.

He vaguely heard Raven say half-heartedly, "No, BB, don't die, I'm sorry I used the f-word on you – " Fortunately for him, birds had a pretty bad sense of hearing, so he didn't manage to catch the rest. The last thing he heard was a can exploding before he leapt off the roof and flew into the forest, finding a better location to meet those bird-brained, uh, birds.


	5. Chapter 5

Raven woke up woozily, blinking her eyes rapidly at the rays of sunlight that shone right at her face. Grumbling, she clutched her throbbing head with both hands and tried to shake off the giddy feeling that was coming over her. It didn't work.

And to make things worse, her hair was still spiky. She didn't even need to go to a mirror to know that her prayers had gone unanswered. But she kind of expected it. Praying to the Azarathean priests was as effective as praying to Beast Boy. They never got anything done. They just sat there, meditated, got fat from the lack of exercise, grumbled, and then died. Stupid.

She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself as she struggled to prop herself up on the bed with her arms. She didn't manage to succeed until a few tries, and when she finally did, she let out a sigh of relief and examined her surroundings blearily. She was in Robin's room. Oh well. She must have somehow had the common sense to make her way to his room even in her drunken state.

Raven grimaced as she tried to recall what happened the previous night. She only remembered the roof, and something about sea urchins and mushrooms. She couldn't really remember why those came to mind though. Her throbbing head was not helping her thought process, anyway.

And then she let her gaze drop to where she was sitting, and she nearly died of shock and horror.

She wasn't alone on the bed. _He _was there too.

But that wasn't the worst part. She was staring at her body wearing nothing but a pair of large sweatpants and a bra.

Raven didn't know what to do. She didn't know how to react. Everything was just crashing into her, and she had absolutely no idea how she was supposed to respond to this kind of situation. Loads of crazy ideas of whatmighthavehappened were running through her head, but she couldn't seem to think properly about any one of them.

Taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself down, Raven lifted the blankets and looked down at her – rather, his – body. And she nearly died again.

She wasn't wearing pants. She was only in a singlet and his underwear.

Raven couldn't take it anymore. She was powerless. There was only one thing she could do right now, and she was definitely going to have to resort to that. Grabbing a pillow closest to her, she held it high above her head and started to pummel the sleeping leader. She didn't care how she was bruising her own body. He owned it now. She was going to make him feel pain if she bloody well felt like it.

Robin lifted an arm to try and fend off her blows, obviously still too sleepy to register what was going on. "What the fu – "

"Get up." Punch. "Get up now." Punch. Punch. Punch.

Robin slowly got up reluctantly, his eyes squinting to get accustomed to the light. "What the hell, Rae?"

Raven pushed down her boiling emotions, her fingers nearly trembling as she pointed at him accusingly. "Look at yourself."

Robin raised an eyebrow questioningly, and looked down.

The silence that followed was deafening. Both of them just sat there, staring at Robin's – actually, her – chest, speechless. And then Raven realised…

Grabbing the blanket desperately, she leaped towards Robin, wrapping the material around his – _her_ – chest frantically. "What the hell were you looking at?" She seethed, pulling the blanket as tightly as she could. _Oh my god, I'm so fucked, I'm so fucked, I'm so fu – _

Robin stared at her, his expression unreadable. "But you told me to look at myself."

"I didn – " Raven struggled to keep her calm, but she failed miserably. "Okay, fine, just… don't look anymore, alright?"

"Yeah," Robin coughed. "Just stop suffocating me with the blanket."

Raven let go of the blanket warily, her hands ready to pounce on him if so much as dared to take a second look at her chest. She was ready to just shrivel up like a prune and die any moment now.

She was a demoness from Azarath, daughter of the fearsome Trigon, and she just gave some human a free show of her cleavage.

Robin seemed to have stiffened all of a sudden, and Raven turned to look at his face. What could already be worse than staring at her cleavage? She grimaced. If he was a typical guy, he wouldn't recover from that so fast. Unless he was – as she wanted to believe – gay. Now that was a thought…

"Why are you…" Robin choked, his violet eyes wide as he stared at Raven. "…only wearing an underwear?"

Raven jerked back to her senses, grabbing the blanket once again and swinging it over the lower part of her body. "Stop looking at me like that," she snapped, turning her face away in embarrassment. "I… don't know."

The leader's mouth opened and closed repeatedly, but no words came out. She felt a tiny sense of satisfaction from that. Now he knew what it felt like to have your private areas exposed. Although she was pretty sure her cleavage show was a lot worse than this.

Great, now she was reduced to comparing their levels of embarrassment. This was just great.

"Could you… put on some pants please?"

Raven raised an eyebrow at him. "Could _you_ go and put on my leotard?"

"We're in my room. Pants are definitely much more accessible."

Raven scowled at him, but complied. He was right, no matter how much she felt like picking a fight with him. The awkwardness between both of them had just reached a whole new level, and she wanted to minimize as much conversation with him as possible.

Walking over to his closet, she nearly grabbed a pair of jeans before he spoke up. "My fighting attire."

Turning her head to shoot him a glare as deadly as possible, Raven reluctantly went for one of his traffic light outfits hanging nearby. Pulling the shirt over her head, she tried to avoid his gaze as he studied her every move, as if she was actually capable of putting on the outfit wrongly. The idiot.

* * *

><p><strong>Flashback to the night before<strong>

"No, BB, don't die, I'm sorry I used the f-word on you, great, now you just jumped off the cliff, you didn't even listen to me. God, why are you always such a moron, huh, picking fights with Cy just because you want to eat that inedible crap you call tofu – "

"Shut up."

"Don't tell me to shut up, woman, I'm lecturing my team mate here." Robin hiccupped. "You don't know how hard it is, being a leader, 'cos you always have to be impartial and crap, but at the same time you've got idiots trying to ruin everyone's day – "

"Shut up."

"God, what's wrong with you? I said – "

"Shut up." Raven mumbled, her fingers fiddling with the ends of the belt around her waist. "Why do you even wear this stupid outfit? The colours are so wrong, it's stuffy, your gloves are horrible – "

"No one asked you for your opinion, okay. Okay? Okay." Robin blinked at her. "Whatcha doing, huh? Hey, no, don't take off my shirt – "

It was too late. Raven had already unfastened the multi-purpose belt and she was already starting to pull off her shirt. "It's hot, dammit – "

"What the fu – hey, that's enough. Don't – "

Again he was too late. Raven was already working on the pants. "Your outfit… it's impractical, alright. Impractical. Why the hell do you have to wear pants – "

Robin waved a hand at her. "Just 'cos you don't wear pants doesn't mean we all don't have to."

"No." Raven glared at him. "We don't need to wear pants. Never. Not ever. It's a dumb idea. Cyborg doesn't wear pants – "

"He's a robot, for goodness sake – "

" – look at BB. He's a moron. He wears pants. Therefore pants equals moron, moron equals pants."

Robin ignored her remark and stared at the sky. It was getting dark, but why were the stars so shiny today? This was so weird, sky going crazy, stars going crazy, clouds not doing their job, moon brighter than the sun, that's crazy, what do they put in his food nowadays? This was wrong. Everything was wrong. Maybe he was sleepy, yeah, he was definitely sleepy. He's going to go back to bed and sleep all the craziness off.

Struggling to his feet, he walked clumsily over to Raven and picked her up by one arm. Damn it, she was so bloody heavy. He was actually this heavy? Man, she was probably eating too much junk and making his body fat. When he gets his body back he's going to work out and lose all the weight she gained for him.

Raven grumbled softly under her breath and allowed him to drag her to her feet, his outfit clutched tightly in her hand. Together they stumbled down the stairs and into the living room.

Oh wait. They had to hide. What if someone saw them? That would be really bad, really really really really bad…

Robin dragged Raven behind a wall, and peeked outside. He held a finger to his mouth and muttered, "Shhh. Can't let anyone see us. Can't. Okay? Can't. Shhh. Absolute silence. Like ninja. Ninja."

"I _hate_ ninjas – "

"Shhh. Absolute silence. Like ninja." He risked a glance, and to his relief there was no one there. Wonderful. Great. Fabulous. With another heave, he dragged Raven towards the doors and down the corridor to his room. He needed to sleep. Who cares about her. He needed to sleep. Now.

As his usual routine, he stumbled towards the closet and randomly grabbed a pair of sweatpants from the pile of clothes in there. It was too hot. He couldn't sleep if it was too hot. He had to take off his shirt, like he always did. Too hot.

Removing the leotard impatiently, he stepped into his sweatpants and hobbled towards the bed. Bed. Great. Just what he needed. Bed.

Raven had already sprawled onto one side of his bed, her breaths long and slow. Robin frowned, but shrugged his shoulders. Whatever. He need to sleep. Now.

Collapsing onto the bed, he fell asleep even before his head hit the pillow.

**End of flashback**

* * *

><p>Raven managed to put on his ugly outfit without too much of a struggle, much to her satisfaction. It was a lot harder than she had expected though. Who in the world wore so tight pants? Oh right. Him.<p>

Turning around, she walked towards him, ready to start nagging at him to wear her leotard. Nagging wasn't really her thing, but she couldn't help it when her privacy was involved. If she had to stare at her cleavage anymore she was really going to go and commit suicide.

That was when both of them heard a loud knocking on the door. "Friend Robin? Are you in there?"

In a split second, both Robin and Raven were scrambling around the room, desperately trying to find some hiding place.

"Friend Robin? I know you're in there."

Robin stared at Raven, wide-eyed. "You gotta act like me," he mouthed, motioning towards the door.

Raven nodded dumbly, before rushing forward and pushing him into the closet. "Stay in there," she whispered. "Don't come out. I'll get rid of her."

Before he could reply, she slammed the closet door in his face and quickly straightened out her clothing before opening the room door, a fake smile plastered to her face. "Starfire? What's your probl – I mean, what brings you here?"

Starfire stared at her in absolute seriousness. "I have something important to tell you, friend Robin. May I come in?"

Raven struggled to keep the smile on her face. "S-sure. Come on in?"

_Oh my god, she knows. Oh shit oh shit oh shit – _

Starfire spun around to face her. "Friend Robin, I think I have some… unexplained feelings towards you."

Raven nearly jumped out of her skin. "What the hel – I mean, what are you talking about?"

The pink haired alien immediately blushed and looked away. "I wish I knew, friend Robin. It's just that, when I see you, my heart goes… what was that word, oh yes, aflutter."

_Aflutter? AFLUTTER?_

"I think, friend Robin, that I might have a crush on you."

Raven's face turned red, her gaze drifting to the closet where she knew the leader was hidden. She really shouldn't be hearing this. This was Starfire's personal confession to Robin, but it was directed at _her_.

"Wait. Wait wait wait wait wait. You like Ro – uh, me?" _Please tell me you're not serious, please please please please please…_

"Yes, dear friend. You make me as happy as – "

"Okay! I get it, yeah. Okay, uh, wow, uh, if _someone_ would help me with this I think I might, uh, know how to respond…" She said loudly at the closet. _Think of something, Bird Boy, think!_

But the stupid guy didn't help. What the hell? This was a confession towards him!

Starfire looked at her confusedly. "Why should you need someone's help, friend Robin? Does this not concern your feelings only?"

"Well, yeah, uh, actually…" Raven fumbled for the right words to say. "I mean, you're right, but um – "

And something vibrated in her pocket. Thanking the Azarathean priests (even though this was probably not their work at all), she quickly came up with a short apology before fishing into her pockets. She didn't know what was inside, but it jolly well be something good to distract her –

It was a mobile phone. Nearly sighing in relief, she flipped open the phone to see a text message displayed on the screen.

"_Tell her no_."

Raven stiffened, staring at the message. It came from an unknown number, but she had no doubt who it was.

And she honestly didn't care how he actually managed to find a mobile phone in the closet.

Tucking the phone away into her pocket hurriedly, she turned to look back at the alien. Taking a deep breath, she replied slowly, "I'm sorry, Star. I… can't, um, accept your feelings."

She tried not to wince as she saw her friend deflate visibly, her green eyes turning downcast. "Is it, friend Robin? Is there no way…?"

"I'm sorry," Raven whispered. And she actually did feel sorry for the alien. She must have mustered up so much courage just to come out with a confession for the leader, but in the end she still got rejected anyway.

And now Raven was just starting to feel a little pissed on her behalf.

"You know," Raven started, glaring at the closet. "I'm really not the choice for you."

Starfire looked up at her, eyes wide. "What…?"

"You heard me. Ro – I don't deserve to be together with you. You are pretty, powerful, and nice. I'm totally the opposite. I mean it. I'm a big jerk. Really. I don't care about others, and my pride is crazily high. And I mean high as in mountain-high. And I've got OCD, you know? You know what's OCD? Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I obsess over everything that can be obsessed about, like Slade, the team, my fighting skills, everything. You don't ever want me as your boyfriend. I'm terrible. I'm the epitome of disgusting." She paused. She was probably going to be killed for this later, but she might as well just add on to it while the mood was still there. "Did you know? I accuse people of molesting me even though I wasn't molested! Look, how disgusting is that? Isn't it revolting? Of course. And I put cologne on my bed and myself when I sleep. I think I'm probably gay. Yeah, I'm gay, can you imagine?"

Starfire gasped, her hands clutched to her mouth.

Raven allowed her tone to soften. "I'm sorry, Star, but now you know why we can't be together. I hope you understand."

Starfire nodded numbly, her eyes never leaving this. "Well, if that is the case, friend Robin, then I shall take my leave then."

"Yes, yes, get going then," Raven smiled triumphantly, ushering the still-shocked alien out of the room. When the door closed, she leaned against the door in relief and muttered, "And please don't ever come back."

Before she could turn around, the closet door was pushed open with a bang. She whipped around, flinching as she saw Robin standing right outside the closet, his – actually, her face - a thundercloud.

_Oh shit. I'm so dead_.


	6. Chapter 6

For all her life, Raven had never experienced an _'oh shit_' moment. When things got out of control, she usually just faced them emotionlessly and calmly, because somehow or another she knew that there would always be a solution to the problem. When the titans fought, she knew how to draw her mind into an empty void and face her enemies with nothing but a cold determination. She was quite the expert at putting her feelings aside when it was necessary, leaving only a cold shell on the exterior. In fact, she was so used to it that being cold and uncaring became a part of her personality, of her being. That's why '_oh shit'_ moments never really happened to her.

But this was a classic '_oh shit'_ moment right here.

The silence was deafening. Raven tried to avoid Robin's glare with the best of her ability, her eyes roaming all over the room. For the first time, she felt grateful for the mask that covered her eyes. She'd rather die than let Robin see her guilty efforts at avoiding him.

At the same time, she realised that Robin had hastily pulled on an oversized T-shirt over the bare top of his – her – body while in the cupboard. Thank goodness she was pretty flat. If she had mountains for boobs, it would be pretty obvious, wouldn't it…

Okay, this was the wrong time for thoughts like that. She was being totally senseless and incoherent.

When Robin spoke, she nearly jumped. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"

Raven took a deep breath, forcing her voice to stay normal. "Chasing her away."

"There were ten million ways in which you could have handled the situation. And you chose the worst one of the lot."

Raven allowed her eyes to rest on his ear, the only thing now which wasn't emanating deadly anger. "It was the most appropriate one."

"Appropriate?" Robin questioned, an eyebrow raised in incredulity. "You are either bullshitting yourself, or you are seriously deluded."

Raven tried not to wince at the cold tone in Robin's voice. She realised that having her voice just made the leader sound even scarier. _No thanks to me_. "Look," she said slowly. "There was no other way to do it. We all know Star. You know as well as me that if I didn't use those… harsh words on you, she's never going to give up. She's too nice – "

"And pretty and powerful? Yeah, I figured."

"That's not the point – "

"Of course it's not. The point is that you just made me an openly gay sadist with a mental problem." Robin drew in a sharp breath. "Now tell me how the _fuck_ am I supposed to be okay with that?"

To her discomfort, Raven realised that the cupboard doors were starting to appear blackish. Was it some problem with the room's lights? Or was it…?

Her throat tightened. "Robin, I need you to relax."

"Yeah, relax. _Relax_. That's a piece of cake."

"No, Robin. I'm serious. You've got to control yourself."

"Funny, the one who couldn't control her damn mouth just a few minutes ago is actually trying to preach to me about _control_."

Raven rushed forward, holding his arms with her rough hands. "You are losing control of your emotions, Rob. You _have_ to keep it dow – "

She was too late. Before she could continue, the closet doors were ripped off the hinges and were left hanging dangerously in mid-air. And they were hovering over their heads dangerously. Very dangerously.

"Robin, stop this. Let's talk about this calmly – "

"You can't expect me to think about this calmly, can you – "

Raven was starting to get a bit nervous. This was just like the first day at the gym, but only more life-threatening. She glanced up, wary of the two hovering doors. Were they… shaking?

Oh, this was not good. Not good at all.

Desperately, she grabbed Robin's wrists as tightly as she could. "Look, just stop being so sensitive, alright? We've got two goddamn doors flying above our heads, so you bloody well keep your emotions in check before we both die stupid and tragic deaths in your room!"

At Raven's sudden and unexpected outburst, Robin seemed to come to his senses, his shaking fists steadying as he looked up for the first time. Staring at it wordlessly, he shifted his gaze back to Raven, as if expecting some sort of advice.

"Okay, now I want you to direct those two doors down to the ground, right next to us. Try it."

"Yeah, I would love to try it, if only you actually taught me _how_ I was to go about doing it."

Raven groaned, clapping a palm to her forehead. She had taught him how to control his emotions, but she had neglected to teach him how to use her powers. Stupidest idea ever. "Okay, right, teach you, yup. I need you to achieve serenity first. With serenity comes control."

"God, why does everything have to be about serenity – "

"Robin, I need you to _try._ Don't talk, just try."

With some effort, Robin stretched out his arms towards the two doors, muttering 'serenity' over and over again. After some time, the doors stopped shaking. _Thank Azarath._ Raven gave a little sigh of relief, then continued. "Great, you've actually got the hang of it. Now I want you to _will_ those two doors to the ground."

"Will?"

"Yeah, will."

"So I just tell myself I _want _them to come down?"

"Uh, yeah, if that's how you want to put it."

"Okay, uh," Robin fidgeted slightly, directing his attention back to the doors. "Both of you, come down."

Nothing happened, even though Raven tried to convince herself that the door on the left did come down a few inches. Talk about wishful thinking.

"Um, I command you to come down."

Still, nothing. Raven muttered, "You don't need to talk to the doors, you just need to will them down – "

"Now."

The doors didn't budge. This was getting slightly frustrating. Starfire had picked up her abilities in a matter of minutes. What was wrong with this guy?

"This is the most irritating thing I've ever done." Robin scowled. "COME DOWN, DAMMIT!"

And that was when he made his fatal mistake. With a whoosh, the two hovering doors started to plummet at an insane speed, heading right towards their heads. Raven found herself jumping forward and yelling, "No, no! Too fast! Move them to the side!"

She watched as Robin's eyes widened and he quickly pushed his glowing fists straight to the right, back at the cupboard. But in his desperation, he forgot the very word she had been trying to drill into his thick skull all this time – 'serenity'.

With a deafening crash, the doors slammed headfirst into the side of the large cupboard, showering them in wood splinters and clothes.

But the worst problem hadn't surfaced yet. From the impact, the cupboard started to teeter dangerously towards them. And then it made its descent.

With his fast reflexes (even in Raven's body), Robin leapt forward and pushed the shocked Raven away before the cupboard fell upon him.

* * *

><p><strong>Ten minutes earlier<strong>

Starfire walked out of Robin's room in a daze, her mind wandering as she proceeded to glide through the corridor towards the main hall. She felt strange, for some reason. Something had been very strange in there, but she could not tell what.

All she knew was that after leaving the room, her heart had started to beat even more wildly than before.

Was it friend Robin? Was it the difference in his behaviour? Yes, he seemed very different just now, but she couldn't tell what exactly was different about him. He looked the same, if not a bit dishevelled, and he sounded the same.

Was it what he said? About having – what was that curious word again, oh yes! - OCD, and being gay? No, it couldn't be. That wasn't what made her so excited. It was his mannerism. The way he behaved towards her today was so different, so honest, so… fresh. He was incredibly impressive today. The way he shifted his hands uncomfortably, the slightly emotionless expression on his face, the way his explanation flowed, the cold exterior…

He was so cool.

Her heart beating wildly in her chest again, Starfire glided a little bit faster. This was extraordinarily exciting. With a smile, she flew excitedly towards the large hall doors. Friend Beast Boy would _love_ to be updated about her newfound exhilaration.

* * *

><p>Beast Boy sat forlornly on the sofa, his legs folded and his arms crossed. This was the worst day ever. Everything wasn't right about today, and that irritated him.<p>

Firstly, Cyborg threw away all his tofu. Secondly, Cyborg kicked him off the sofa while he was sleeping in his dog form. Thirdly, Cyborg didn't want to play video games with him.

Cyborg, Cyborg, Cyborg. That bastard was ruining his life.

He had stayed up unnecessarily late to listen to the annoying bird squawks all night, and this time there were many complaints. They complained about the thunderstorm yesterday. They complained that the lightning killed some of them, because it came so unexpectedly. They complained that they felt a strange magical aura from the Tower during the thunderstorm.

What. Utter. Bullshit.

If they were just trying to get his attention, they were failing badly at it. Just because of some stupid thunderstorm they were starting to come up with crazy unbelievable stories that even Starfire would find hard to believe.

Strange, magical aura? Funny, he hadn't noticed anything strange or magical during the thunderstorm. And everyone was doing fine. Jinx was still doing her time in jail, and Puppet Master was dead.

Forcing himself to think of something happier, Beast Boy started to daydream about that pretty tuna he kissed that day in the sea (while he was being a tuna). Gosh, he was so irresistible to the ladies, even those of other species. This was a true blue Casanova right here.

Just as he was starting to enjoy his reverie, the hall doors hissed open and in few Starfire, her face flushed and her eyes bright with excitement. Curious, Beast Boy rested his head in his palms as he watched her float towards him.

"Friend Beast Boy! I have extremely good news!"

Beats Boy perked up a little. "For me?"

Starfire shook her head cheerfully. "No, friend, for me!"

He deflated, sagging a little on the couch. What the hell, someone should teach her some manners about not gloating about your good news to someone who was in a shitty mood.

Starfire came closer. "It's about friend Robin."

Immediately, Beast Boy shot up. Now this was some good gossip for the milking. "Yeah? What about him? Did you confess to him?"

Starfire nodded abashedly. "Yes."

"Oh my god, he said yes? He said yes, didn't he?" Beast Boy was nearly dancing in excitement now. Imagine that! Robin and Starfire sitting on a tree, K-I-S-S-I…

"No, he did not." Starfire replied as cheerfully as before, a smile still plastered on her face.

"What the… then why are you so happy about it? Shouldn't you be moping or something? Like you just got rejected by your crush of a hundred million years?"

Again, the alien shook her head. "It's not that, friend Beast Boy. It was his peculiar behaviour."

"Peculiar… what?"

"Behaviour," the alien repeated happily. "He was extraordinarily cool today, to put it in human terms. Everything was so cool about him! He was quite smooth, and a bit lacking in emotion, and a bit cold…"

"Huh? You mean like… Raven?"

Starfire pursed her lips in thought. "Well, now that you have given me such an appropriate reminder, I should think so…"

"So you are telling me you like Robin more now because he's Raven-ized?"

Starfire nodded, smiling.

"Okay, you said he was smooth. What did he say?"

"Oh, well, he said a lot of queer things that I am not very familiar with. But he told me he was happy!"

"Happy? So Robin just looked at you and said, 'Hi, sorry I don't like you back, but I'm happy'?"

"Those were not his precise words, but I am sure that he meant so!" Starfire said, blushing.

Beast Boy stared at her for a moment. "Okay, wait. Wait wait wait. What _did_ he say?"

"Friend Robin said he was gay, which means jovial and carefree, does it not?" The pink alien was so proud of herself for having mastered the English language so easily. Who said it was difficult? It was simpler than her own native language!

Beast Boy leaped up on the sofa, his eyes wide and unbelieving. Robin said that he was… gay? This was crazy. She must've heard the guy wrongly, because Robin would never, _ever_ say he's gay. Robin being gay was like Raven being girly. Raven and girly did not go along well at all. Raven had none of the qualities people expected of females.

She was Raven The Ungirly And Kind Of Freaky Person Oh Wait No Demon.

His thoughts were racing through his head now at a speed faster than Kid Flash. Something was incredibly weird here, and he had to figure it out before he died of curiosity. Curiosity was something Beast Boy was really scared of, because it was lethal. He had heard about millions of cats dying because of this horrible disease. He didn't want to contract it and die a pathetic death in cat form.

Before he could gather his thoughts together, there was a loud crash from the corridor. And then it was followed by another, and then a yell.

* * *

><p>Raven stared in horror at the sight before her. The room was a huge mess, with clothes and wooden splinters strewed everywhere. The overhead light had been smashed beyond recognition, and some of the glass had landed on the fallen cupboard as well.<p>

But that wasn't her main concern. Somewhere in that rubble lay the leader.

Jumping forward, Raven started to dig futilely at the pile of clothes, shoving them aside as she reached for the damaged cupboard. Pulling as hard as she could (she was amazed by the incredible amount of energy she now possessed), she managed to lift the cupboard just enough to see… some violet hair. Desperately, she grabbed the edges of the cupboard to get a better grip and yanked. Robin was pinned under there, and she needed to get him out.

With a grunt, she managed to lift the cupboard just enough to get the weight off the leader's body. How was she going to get him out of there with her two hands occupied? Kick the body out of there?

No. Never. There was absolutely no way in which she was going to abuse her own body like that.

Feeling slightly guilty for that selfish thought, Raven reluctantly nudged the unconscious leader, hoping that he would wake up and roll himself out of there. The cupboard was crazily heavy; she knew that she was going to lose grip of it soon.

Raising her leg as high as she could, Raven took a deep breath and -

"NOW WHAT IN FUCK'S NAME IS THIS?" Cyborg bellowed as he bounded into the room, followed by Beast Boy and Starfire.

Raven's legs stopped poised in mid air. "What?"

"You tell me what, Rob. This is the second time I'm seeing a wrecked room this week!" Cyborg paused, then froze as he caught sight of the unconscious body on the floor. "Is that Raven?"

Beast Boy craned his neck as he scrutinized Raven in her incriminating position. "Gosh, Rob, you look like you were going to kick her."

Raven raised her hands desperately. "No, I wasn't, I'm trying to – "

Cyborg ran forward and lifted the cupboard off Raven's arms, much to her relief. Flexing her arms quickly, she bent down to tend to the unconscious Robin. She needed to examine his injuries immediately. That cupboard was really heavy, and she was sure that he broke a rib or two. She tried not to wince as she imagined her body being bruised in such a horrible way.

Instinctively, Raven stretched her palm out and lay it flat on Robin's chest. Now all she had to do was summon her powers and…

_Oh fuck._

As Raven slowly lifted her head to look at the other three titans, she realised that she had just gotten herself into a lot more trouble than she expected.

Cyborg was the first to speak, and his voice was strained. "Robin, are you… feeling her up?"


	7. Chapter 7

"I, er," Raven started, her hand slowly pulling away from Robin's chest. "I thought - "

Cyborg raised an eyebrow at her. The other two titans were still staring at her, although the meaning behind each stare was different. Beast Boy was giving her the have-you-officially-gone-mental stare, while Starfire was staring interestedly at her hand as if she had a nice diamond ring on her finger.

Sometimes she had to appreciate the pink-haired alien for knowing nothing about skinship.

"You thought...?" Cyborg prompted.

Raven desperately tried to come up with an excuse that would get her out of this sticky situation, but to her absolute dismay nothing came to her head. It wasn't Beast Boy or Starfire that worried her; it was the machine man. Cyborg was a tricky guy. While there were times when she actually believed that he had the same IQ as Beast Boy, Raven knew he wasn't some dimwit. This was one of those times when he could potentially prove that he was pretty much comparable to Robin in terms of logic.

There was only one way she could deal with this. It wasn't very smart, but it would have to do. "Ro – I mean, Raven choked."

"Choked?" Cyborg's human eye shifted to the unconscious Robin. "On what?"

"On a..." _Dammit, what did we eat for lunch? Think, think, think, think think think think thinkthinkthinkthink - "_A... a meatball."

Raven proceeded to let loose a string of mental curse words at her stupid and unhelpful brain.

"A meatball?" Starfire asked, her eyes bright with curiosity.

Beast Boy started, "Gosh, Rob, I didn't even know we had any meatballs for lun - "

"She was choking pretty bad," Raven cut in hurriedly, putting on the most Robin-like expression on her face as she could. "I thought she was suffocating at first, but I guess not."

Cyborg's gaze returned to Raven. There was a long pause before he finally spoke up. "That's pretty weird. I thought Raven _never_ eats any of the meatballs I make."

"Carnivore," Beast Boy accused. He was conveniently ignored.

Raven resisted the urge to show her relief. The story seemed a little too crappy to hold any water, but as long as the titans were convinced...

"So have you gotten the meatball out yet?" Beast Boy asked excitedly. "Where is it?"

"Uh," Raven floundered. "I was just... getting it out, actually."

"Really? How? By feeling her up?"

"By, uh, whacking it out."

"Whacking it out? Is that even possible?"

Raven shrugged her shoulders. "I guess?" Actually, she had no idea how humans did it. If she had a choice she would just use her powers to force it out.

Beast Boy wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Care to demonstrate?"

Cyborg chuckled and Raven shot him a glare. What the hell was that guy laughing at?

"Sure," Raven said as off-handedly as she could, her hand reaching out towards Robin again. She hoped that he wouldn't wake up halfway through this.

Raising her hand slightly, she gave Robin's chest a pathetic slap.

"You look like you were patting her." Beast Boy observed helpfully.

Raven gritted her teeth and glared at the changeling. "I'm just getting to it," she muttered, just a little bit pissed that she had to go through this rubbish while Robin enjoyed his unconsciousness.

Lifting her palm a little higher, she hit Robin again, but with a little more effort. No response.

"I don't think she choked on anything," Cyborg noted doubtfully. "I mean, she seems to be seriously knocked out. And she actually made such a mess of your room by choking on a meatball?"

Raven frowned at him, then gave a little helpless laugh. "How would you know what she's capable of if you've never seen her choke on a meatball before? She, er, pretty much lost control. Like she just went bonkers."

Beast Boy flinched. "Like when she went all Queen Ursula on Doctor Light? Dude, that's freaking creepy."

"You've got a problem with that?" Raven shot back, offended. Whoever this Queen Ursula was, it didn't sound very nice. The name itself made her sound... fat.

Beast Boy jerked back. "Chill, dude, when did you get so protective over Queen Ursula? Raven's creepy and all, but she isn't _that_ bad."

Raven's eyes flashed fire. "Moron," Cyborg coughed delicately into the back of his palm.

Starfire glided forward, her large eyes fixated on Robin's body. "So, friends, are we going to proceed with saving friend Raven?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah, right," Raven mumbled, facing Robin again. She didn't want to meet Cyborg's gaze. She somehow had the feeling that the minute she looked him in the eye he would be able to tell that she was lying.

Well, it's now or never. Without holding back anymore, she slapped Robin as hard as she could across the chest.

The reaction was immediate. Robin's violet eyes flew open and he shot up with a gasp, a hand clutched to his chest. When he realised what he was clutching, his grip quickly slackened and he allowed his fist to drop to the floor. Then he turned to glare at Raven.

"What was that for?"

Raven recovered from her initial shock and glared at him. "I had to wake you up, didn't I?"

"Of all the brilliant ways you could have employed to wake me up, you chose to try breaking a few of my ribs?"

"I..." Raven drifted off, suddenly aware of the presence of the other three titans in the room. "You choked on a... meatball, remember? That was the only thing I can do."

"A meatball? When the hell did I choke on a mea - "

Raven rushed forward and started to slap Robin unnecessarily on the back, talking as loudly as she could to stop his protests. "OH, WE WERE SO WORRIED ABOUT YOU! HAVE YOU ALREADY FORGOTTEN YOUR DISASTER WITH THE MEATBALL? YOU SHOULDN'T TOUCH THOSE THINGS ANYMORE, RAE, IT'S REALLY BAD FOR YOU - "

" - ball. Jesus, quit _mauling _me -"

" - OHOHOHO, IF YOU DIED, WHAT WOULD WE DO? WE WOULD LOSE A DEAR TEAM MATE OF OURS, OUR SO VERY DEAR TEAM MATE, OHOHOHOHO - "

"There's no need to scream when I'm sitting right beside you - "

"JUST DON'T DIE ON US, ALRIGHT?" Raven shifted a little nearer to Robin's ear and hissed softly, "Will you please just play along until we get everyone out of the room? THANK GOODNESS YOU ARE SAFE - "

It took a few seconds for Robin to register the meaning of her words. Then it started to dawn on him and his eyes wandered in realization.

"Oh, uh, a meatball, right, really dangerous stuff, yeah." He started uncomfortably, attempting to slip into Raven's personality.

Raven stopped slamming her palm into his back and gave the titans are hopeful glance. _Please go away please go away please go away..._

There was a deafening silence in the room before Starfire shouted joyously, "Friend Raven! You are okay!" With a little squeal, she jumped into Robin's arms and hugged him tightly, ignoring his uncomfortable grunts of pain.

"Yeah, I'm fine, now get off me. Please."

Starfire pulled away abashedly, her radiant smile never leaving her face. Robin answered with a relatively well-done rendition of Raven's emotionless face.

"Right! So now that all this crap has settled and Rae's alive, let's get outta here." Cyborg said brightly, turning around and walking towards the door. Raven had a little feeling that he didn't want to spend any more time in the already damaged room. The last time they messed up the gym, she was pretty sure he went into some form of minor depression.

"Yeah, right," Beast Boy said uncertainly, following the machine man out of the room. Starfire was the last to leave, and Raven noticed (much to her discomfort) that Starfire was shooting some really weird looks at her. They looked... suggestive.

As the doors closed behind them, Raven and Robin heard Beast Boy ask Cyborg, "So what happened to the meatball?"

* * *

><p>Robin was the first to break the silence. "If I'm not wrong, Star was shooting you some come-hither looks back there."<p>

Raven turned on him angrily. "You were faking it, weren't you?"

"What?" He asked innocently.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about. You were faking it."

"I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about."

Raven laughed sarcastically. "Yeah, and I have a crush on Beast Boy. Give it up. I know you were pretending to faint."

"Gosh, how so?"

"I'm not an idiot, Robin."

"A cupboard fell on me, Raven."

"It bruised your shoulder."

"I wonder how you would know that when _I _was the one who got hit."

Raven threw her hands up in the air in frustration. "So what? Now you're trying to tell me that I managed to wake you just by hitting your chest a few times?"

"Hitting my chest? That's a very nice way to put it, isn't it? I think it was more along the lines of 'beating me up'. I was telling the truth when I said that you probably broke a few of my ribs."

Then it came to Raven. "So that's why you did it. You wanted revenge on me."

"Revenge? Dear me, why would I ever think about revenge?"

"Because of what I told Star. You wanted me to embarrass myself, didn't you? And now all of them would think of me as someone who can't eat meatballs because I _choke on them_."

Robin chuckled. "That was your brilliant idea, Ms. Genius. I didn't come up with the meatball-disaster excuse."

She shot him another glare. "You're an asshole."

Robin pressed a hand to his neck in mock horror. "Your language!"

"Fuck you."

* * *

><p>It was a few hours later before Raven finally got her own privacy. Robin was insistent that she train as hard as she could in the gym so that he won't lose his fitness, and teaching Robin how to use her powers was like teaching a fish how to climb a tree. It's one of those circumstances where you try your very best to tell the fish who's so used to swimming half its life to get on the tree trunk and climb upwards. The fish, who hates to leave its comfort zone, would give all kinds of rubbish excuses not to master the climb and complain about the difficulty of doing something it was shitty at.<p>

Muttering to herself angrily, she stalked towards her new room. With a lot of patience she had managed to get Robin to arrange some of the furniture back to its original spots, and the room was at least livable for now. Cyborg was going to need a lot of time to get over his imminent depression, so repairing wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

Turning a corner, she passed her team mates' rooms as fast as she could. She didn't want to meet anyone of them right now. The events of the day had truly exhausted her.

She was right in front of the room door when she heard a strange swishing sound behind her. Jerking around, she came face to face with Starfire. _Great. Just fucking great_.

"Um, Star? What are you doing here?"

"Friend Robin?" Starfire asked nervously. "Do you have time to speak with me?"

Raven raised an eyebrow warily. She had some kind of idea where this was going, and she didn't like it. "Regarding?"

"Well, it is about... um..." Starfire started, her face turning red. "Us."

Raven suppressed a groan. "Again? Star, I thought I made myself very clear to you - "

"Yes, yes, I understand, friend Robin! It is just that, well, I..."

"You...?"

"I... my feelings have not changed."

Raven was starting to get a little irritated. Wasn't she convinced that nothing was going to work out? "Star, I'm really _really_ sorry, but this _cannot_ happ - "

"I know! Friend Robin, I only have one more request to make."

"One more request?"

"Will you say yes? Do promise me that you would say yes."

"It depends on what that request is. I'm not the type who likes to waste my time."

Starfire gave her the largest googly eyes she had ever seen. "Please?"

Raven sighed. "If that's what gets you off my back, fine."

Starfire clapped her hands happily and grabbed Raven's arm. "Alright! Let us embark on a date!"

"A date!" Raven sputtered.

"Yes, a date! We shall go to the cinema together and enjoy the feast of little brown and yellow things!"

"Popcorn?" Raven asked weakly. She knew there was no way out of this situation already, and if Robin ever heard about it, she was as good as doomed. But if it was the only way to get Star off her back, she would do it.

"Oh yes, that should be the word!" Starfire smiled at Raven. "Shall we go tomorrow, then? I promise you that I shall not bother you about this ever again."

"I hope so," Raven muttered, pulling out of Starfire's grasp and all but running to the refuge of her room.

* * *

><p>Robin sat on the couch, staring forlornly at the screen in front of him. The newsreader was busy droning about some new criminal, but none of the words seemed to reach his ears. All of his concentration was spent on suppressing his emotions, a feat that he was having some trouble getting used to. For the past few days he had found out that the best way to deal with Raven's powers was to keep an emotionless front at all times, and the idea of having to do that all day didn't sit very well with him. Smiling was such a difficult thing to do, and he had to watch his temper all the time.<p>

And now he couldn't focus on the news. How did Raven live her life?

He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he nearly didn't notice Beast Boy plop himself next to him on the couch. "What's with the sudden interest in TV?"

Robin raised an eyebrow at him. He did this everyda – oh. Raven never watched television. "I, uh, figured I should watch a bit of news, you know, keep myself updated."

Beast Boy looked at him questioningly. "You? Aren't you usually too busy meditating or something to care about being updated? Being updated is Robin's job."

"That's because you guys are lazy," Robin retorted hotly, before remembering his position and going back into Raven-mode. "Robin's a bit busy right now, so I'm helping out."

"Aren't you a little too helpful?"

Robin shook his head. "I don't see why."

"I dunno, you really aren't the helpful type." Then Beast Boy perked up as if he just had an idea. Turning to Robin, he wagged his eyebrows suggestively. "Unless..."

"Unless?"

"You've got the hots for Robin."

Robin jerked violently, nearly dropping the remote control. "Do you even know how ridiculous that sounds?"

"You know what I call that? I call that _denial_."

"I do _not_ like... Robin."

"You can't lie, hon. It's written all over your face."

"How the hell is it written all over my fa - "

Beast Boy stopped chuckling for a while and sighed. "Oh dear, but you two are not meant to be - "

"Of course we're not meant to be, you dickhead - "

" - because Robin's gay."

"WHAT?"

"Hey, don't need to get all shocked. It's true."

"Where did you hear that from?" Robin asked in a strangled voice.

"Star." Beast Boy sighed. "She tried confessing and he told her he was gay. Sad, isn't it? Life sucks that way. Just when you thought you found the correct guy, life throws you some shit like: he likes men."

"He's not gay."

"And you would know...?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure he's not gay."

"Pretty sure doesn't count for anything."

Robin threw his hands up in frustration. "Forget it."

"Now aren't we emotional here?"

"Go away."

"You don't own this couch," Beast Boy said childishly, getting into a squatting position. "Actually I came here because I wanted you to go out and do something with me."

"No way am I doing _anything _with you."

"Please," Beast Boy whined. "I really wanted to try out this place and I need someone to go with me. You know, someone to be my partner-in-crime."

"Partner-in-crime? Who gave you permission to go rogue?"

"No, nothing like that. It's just that Robin's going to blow up at me if he finds out where I'm going."

Robin looked up. "And where is that?"

Beast Boy looked around furtively before leaning close. "A club."

Robin gritted his teeth. "Absolutely not. I – um, Robin lay down some ground rules. We can't be seen in places like that."

"It's just once," Beast Boy whined again. "All youths our age try it. I'm just trying to be normal!"

"When you are short and green and turn into animals, normal doesn't quite cut it."

"Come on, Rae!" Beast Boy pleaded. "You don't have to dance or drink or whatever. You just need to stand there and make sure Robin doesn't pop by."

"No means no."

Beast Boy pouted. "Fine. I'll just have to ask Cyborg or go alone then."

"You are _not _stepping into any club."

"When did you get the habit of mothering me? Just go and pray to your planet or something. Sheesh."

"You _can't_ go, you asshole."

That just made the changeling stick his tongue out at him. "I will go, whether you or Robin like it or not. Spoilsports."

Robin opened his mouth to protest, but gave up after a while. There was no stopping Beast Boy if he was dead set on doing something. If he allowed him to go clubbing alone, there was a very high possibility that the guy would get drunk and make a fool out of himself in public. If he allowed Cyborg to go with him, _both_ of them would get piss-drunk and Robin would have two problems to handle. Scandals arose pretty easily because the paparazzi in Jump City had nothing better to do with their lives, and Robin couldn't afford that.

There was only one option left, and Robin didn't like it in the least.

"Alright, I'll go with you."

Beast Boy's eyes brightened considerably. "Really? You will?" Then his stare turned suspicious. "But why did you change your mind? You aren't going to rat on me to Rob, are you?"

Robin sighed, muttering, "I don't even need to."

"What?"

"Nothing. Just tell me when you're going."

"Tomorrow!"

The leader grumbled silently and turned his attention back to his emotions. When this whole mess was over, he was going to have to do something about the rules.


	8. Chapter 8

Raven stood in front of Robin's mirror forlornly, her – his – mouth tightened into a little scowl beneath the mask. Now she was being forced to go out. With Starfire. What joy.

She glared the mirror for a little longer, as if her stare would be able to burn a hole through it. This was such torture. For all the years she had spent being a titan, she had never stepped out of the Tower in plain clothing before. It was unnecessary, and rightly so. They were the protectors of this city; they didn't need to go around mixing with the people they saved. Why gain all that useless attention? Raven much preferred the more convenient method of taking out the troublemakers quietly and discreetly, but when you're in a team with a half-robot, a green dimwit, an air-headed alien and a traffic light, 'quiet' doesn't quite cut it. She had resigned to that fact long ago.

But now? Because of someone'sstupid private life, she had to sacrifice her privacy. Like her problems weren't bad enough already.

Stalking over to Robin's closet, she threw open the doors with a little too much force, causing the hinges to protest rather noisily. That earned them another glare, as if it were their fault for being so pathetic. Her eyes scanning through the clothes quickly, Raven grabbed a pair of jeans and a white polo shirt and threw them over her shoulder. She didn't know how to dress a guy, but that would have to do. She frowned when it came to the boots. What shoes do guys like to wear? Cyborg wore no shoes, BB wore boot-looking things, and Robin wore, well, boots. Throwing her hands in the air in frustration, she gave up trying to think of proper footwear and decided to just pull the jeans over in the hopes that no one would see the huge chunky straps. Dressing Robin was _not _going to be another problem of hers.

Closing her eyes tightly, she pulled her pants off in one swift motion, flinging them to her left before stepping into the jeans Robin owned. It wasn't comfortable, but it was definitely better than the tight green leggings that made up his costume. She opened her eyes in relief. Now that wasn't so hard. She just _might_ be able to get used to dressing Ro -

_Shut up. Just shut up._

Opening her eyes again, she proceeded with the shirt. Her body had been aching all day, and she was determined to find out why. She wasn't like one of those idiotic fangirls Robin had amassed over the years who would faint and die if they ever saw Robin shirtless. She's not going to care if she saw his upper torso. This inconvenient relationship problem of his had already invaded her personal life, so screw his privacy.

Grabbing the ends of the costume with both hands, she managed to pull herself free of the skin tight outfit. Now she just needed to get the shirt on and she would be don -

She froze, staring at herself in the mirror.

_Sweet Jesus._

She felt rather taken aback for a moment when she realised that she had just used a human phrase. Usually it went along the lines of "_Cursed Azarath" or "Trigon's balls"_, but what she just saw warranted her a little humanity.

It wasn't the eight pack that shocked her. Raven was staring at a ripped torso full of scars and bruises.

She squinted at the mirror. Where in the world did he get this from? There were fresh scars of every length on his chest and stomach, and they overlapped messily with the old ones that were leaving long white marks on his skin. There were green and purple bruises all over the place as well, and Raven couldn't seem to find a single unharmed spot anywhere.

Maybe his nipples. But obviously she didn't want to go into that.

Her eyes trailed a long scar that stretched from his side all the way up to the shoulder. It was still a scab, meaning that he must have sustained it long ago. That looked pretty nasty. Hesitantly, she prodded it gently with her finger.

_Fuck. Ow._

Now that was a fairly stupid idea. She made a mental note never to prod his wounds again, especially if she was going to stay in this body for some time.

She felt this strange unpleasant feeling rising up in her chest. It wasn't the same dull ache she had been feeling ever since she entered this body, but it was more... innate. Was it guilt? Sympathy? She couldn't really tell.

Without knowing what she was doing, her hands were already scrambling for the shirt in a desperate hurry to put it on and conceal the scars. Is this what Robin went through everyday? Does he change in a hurry in the mornings to avoid the brutal realisation of his weaknesses and injuries? Or does he treat it like a part of him? Hell, how does he rest? He's got insomnia, injuries everywhere, Slade obsessions...

How the _fuck_ did he lead a team with all that bravado when he was suffering so much?

Raven closed her eyes and quickly exchanged the mask on her face with a pair of sports sunglasses he had on his table. It was a trick he taught her beforehand should the need ever arise. As she briskly walked out of the room, she realised that her hands were trembling slightly.

* * *

><p>"<em>Oh y<em>eah baby," Beast Boy smiled appreciatively as Robin walked out of the room in a pair of skinny jeans and a black top. "Never seen you in anything apart from your swimming costume before."

Robin ignored him as he walked past the changeling towards the hall. "Where to?" he asked curtly, dangling two black Converse shoes in front of him by the shoelaces. They looked so... new. Like no one had worn them before. He had found them chucked beneath the bed, with a little purple note screaming a fangirl's message of how awesome Raven was and how these 'gothic' shoes will _totally _match her, like, really...

He's going to deny that he read the whole message at least thrice through with a stupid smile on his face. It was endearing, yet so _stupid_.

It was quite strange, to be honest. The Raven he knew wouldn't give two hoots about her fans, and she always left her gifts on the table in the kitchen to rot and grow mushrooms on. This was about the first time he's seen a gift she's actually kept.

Even if she did leave it under the bed to rot and grow mushrooms on.

Slipping his feet into the shoes, he realised (much to his amusement) that they were a perfect fit. How did the fans actually know her shoe size? His fans always got his shoe size wrong, since he wore chunky boots all the time that looked bigger on the outside than they were on the inside.

Beast Boy thrust a piece of paper into his face. "LGBT?" Robin nearly choked, incredulous. "Are you trying to be funny?"

"Cool, right?" BB replied triumphantly, his eyes glowing.

"I was thinking more on the lines of insane. Do you know what LGBT stands for?"

"Dude, of course. _Let's Get Boinky Together._ Awesome stuff!"

"Let's _what_? Are you acting stupid or are you actually stupid?"

"Why are you always scolding me nowadays? C'mon, if there's one thing I know best, it's the names of all the best clubs in town."

"Sorry, stupid question. You _are_ actually stupid."

BB glared at him with the best glare he could muster, which was honestly not very intimidating. "Fine then, tell me what LGBT stands for."

"If you must know," Robin sighed, pressing a hand to his face. "It stands for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transexuals. And you," he paused, "are metrosexual."

BB laughed loudly. "Nice try, Ravey-pavey, but that's not how you try and convince me against going for boinky-together goodness."

"You aren't even listening to m - "

Before he knew it, Robin was being dragged out of the door by Beast Boy in a very unfashionable manner.

* * *

><p>Raven and Starfire had been strolling the streets for the longest time.<p>

Longest time being the approximate duration of five minutes.

Raven groaned as Starfire flitted – yes, _flitted_ – around her excitedly, speaking in an English-Tamaranean mix of languages. She gave up trying to understand the happy alien some moments ago, but that didn't seem to stop Starfire from talking.

To make things worse, she met a few people who had already recognised Starfire and well, her in Robin's body. She could hear so many whispers going along the lines of "oh my god, are Starfire and Robin dating?" and "they are so cute together! Look at his jeans crap I want those jeans too even if I'm a girl mummy would you get me those jeans?" and "Starfire is an absolute angel, look at her hair". Starfire didn't seem to hear them at all, or maybe she was just too busy basking in the attention to care. Or maybe she was too busy yapping away at Raven to care.

"... go to this curious place?"

Raven nodded tiredly. "Yeah, sure."

"Here we are then!"

Raven stopped in her tracks, nearly bumping into Starfire's back. The alien was staring up at a few neon-green letters decorating the front of a strange little building. There were four letters in total: _LGBT_. Starfire squealed in delight, clapping her hands happily as the letters changed colours before their very eyes: from green, to red, to yellow, to pink, to blue, and then back to green.

LGBT? Was that even a word? Raven had no idea what it meant. She hardly knew anything about the human way of life, since hers had always been nothing but meditating and reading books and fighting.

The only thing she knew was that LGBT had absolutely no vowels in it, and was therefore, not a word.

A non-word spells nothing but trouble.

Turning around a bit too hastily, she tried to come up with the most cheerful tone ever, very unRobin-like. "Look! I see some shops there! I think those might be a bit more fu - "

Starfire was having none of that. "We shall go in, friend Robin!" With a jerk, Raven found herself being yanked into the strangely titled building towards her impending doom.

* * *

><p>"So, how old are you?" Random Girl said in a slurred tone, running her fingers from Robin's shoulder to his neck. This was the fourth girl who had tried to hit on him tonight, and he was starting to get a bit tired.<p>

"Um, that's really not your business."

Random Girl 4 chuckled. "Acting hard to get, I see." She leaned closer to whisper into Robin's ear. "I like it."

Robin fought down the urge to flinch. "Okay, thanks. I'm sorry but you're kind of not my... type."

She did her creepy chuckle again. "So do you like the innocent looking ones? The smart ones? The gothic ones?" She looked him up and down. "Yeah, probably the gothic ones."

"What?"

She gestured at him. "Purple hair, emotionless face, black shirt, tight jeans, black Converses. Babe, you're totally a goth."

"I don't think I - "

"Hey," she said dramatically, placing a bony finger on his lips. "You don't need to fight your true calling. You just need to come home with me."

Robin got up quickly. "I'm really not intere - "

"You know you want it - "

"Hey!" A voice rang out from behind Robin, and he nearly sagged in relief. "Hands off, bitch."

Robin whipped around to take a good look at his saviour, and nearly collapsed. Another random girl with spiky hair stood there, her eyes fixed on Random Girl 4. She had a ridiculous amount of black lipstick on, and Robin had never seen a girl put that much eyeliner in his life.

"She's not interested, loser," Random Girl 5 hissed, her eyes flitting between Robin and Random Girl 4.

"Beat it, slut," Random Girl 4 spat, her arm going around Robin's shoulder protectively. "She's mine."

"Not if I take her first." Random Girl 5 smiled creepily. With a little shriek, she was on Random Girl 4 and the two of them were fighting viciously and tearing at each other's hair. Robin grabbed the opportunity and ran as fast as he could towards the exit.

Where was BB? That asshole was probably dancing like an idiot somewhere. He was such a whore for attention.

Never mind. He had to get out of here fast before he lost his mind and started exploding things.

Okay, he needed to wash his face. He could smell the club environment on himself. Absolutely disgusting.

Hesitating in front of the toilet doors, he took a deep breath before entering the ladies' restroom. He was going to have some trouble getting used to that.

To his relief, the restroom was empty. If he had to meet one more girl who tried to hit on him, he would go insane. He splashed water on his face repeatedly, relishing the feel of the cold water on his cheeks.

A low rumbling sound came from outside, and Robin walked curiously to the windows. The sky had turned really dark, and a few raindrops were starting to splatter onto the window pane. Great. Just what he needed. Now he will have to wait in this terrible place for the rain to stop. He didn't even bring an umbrella. Oh well, he could just run out to another building. It's not like he will melt under the rai -

A familiar wave of dizziness overtook him, and he stumbled where he stood. _What the hell?_ He looked at his own hands, looking on confusedly as his vision blurred. Another wave hit him then, and he hit the wall behind him before collapsing to the floor, succumbing to the darkness that swallowed him.

* * *

><p>"And so, I am extremely excited that we have arrived in this amazing place, friend Robin!" Starfire giggled, gliding in front of her sullen partner. "I have met so many friendly people!"<p>

"Yeah," her date mumbled.

Starfire could hardly contain her glee. She was finally on a date with friend Robin! He looked absolutely amazing today, and he acted like the perfect boyfriend. He was cool, suave and patient, and she was so proud to show him off to the public today.

Robin mumbled from behind her, "I'm going to the restroom."

Starfire nodded, and watched him leave. This was the perfect place to be. So many people had come to talk to her even though she didn't know them well at all. Robin had pushed most of them away as if they were flies, but Starfire found his actions funny. He seemed to be a magnet of attention in this place, and males seemed to corner him everywhere he went. How popular he was!

As another girl approached her asking for a curious thing called an ASL, Starfire turned her attention away from the retreating back of her partner and didn't notice Robin collapsing in the toilet as the doors swung shut behind him.


	9. Chapter 9

Raven could only see darkness. She couldn't feel her arms or legs, but she could somehow tell that she was floating. Her mind felt like it was drifting away from her body, and against her wise judgement she let it go.

This feeling was strangely... familiar. She's been through this before. She just couldn't remember when.

As she drifted around in her mental limbo, she could somehow hear a voice in the distance. Wait, _two _voices. Was that her voice... and Robin's? As she strained to hear what the voices said, she was rather shocked to realise that it sounded like all of their previous conversations jumbled up together.

_Why am I hearing this now? What's happening to me?_

Raven tried to gather her thoughts together, but every time she tried to focus on one the thought would slip away like sand through her fingers. She closed her eyes, willing herself to concentrate. As she did so, images flashed before her: the first realisation that Robin and her had switched bodies, the first time she slept in Robin's room, the moment when Robin had helped her use the toilet, the incident when she had grabbed Robin's chest... but just that in those memories she was still in her own body and Robin was in his. It was like looking at the past events with both of them still in their true forms.

Every memory zipped past her in a blur. Raven struggled to stay alert. There was something in this moment that made her feel so relaxed and tired. She didn't want to do anything, think of anything, worry about anything -

_No_.

With a jolt, Raven came to her senses. She _had _to think rationally. Something was happening to her because of the body switch, and if she was affected in this way, then...

Robin. He had to be going through this too. Desperately, Raven started to will her arms and legs to move, ignoring her body's protests. He was definitely somewhere here with her. She _had_ to get to him somehow.

As normalcy started to return to her body, Raven checked herself nervously. _I got my body back_. She sighed in relief as she studied her pale hands and her arms, ensuring that they were authentic. It felt great to have control over her own body. Everything just seemed less wrong like this. Even if she was floating in some weird black hole.

Raven quickly regained her rationality. If there was any way she was going to get out of this strange dimension, she was most probably going to have to find him first. Raven tried summoning her powers; they didn't work. Cursing inwardly, she allowed herself to float into a horizontal position with her stomach facing downwards before bending her knees together and pushing off, hoping that the air would act as an invisible platform.

Thankfully, it worked. Raven found herself gliding painfully slowly in her forward direction. While the speed wasn't there, at least she was moving. It was better than nothing.

As she glided forward, Raven looked in all four directions, hoping to see a sign that would lead her to the leader. She went on for what seemed like the longest time, but she couldn't seem to find anything. She was just floating along stupidly and blindly. This was getting so unnecessarily pointless – _Wait_. _Right there._ There was some sort of faint glimmer towards her left. It was so faint that she wouldn't have noticed it had she been any less observant. Squinting, Raven moved closer to the light.

Her breath caught. As she moved in to get a closer look, she saw Robin floating gently towards her, his cape rippling softly behind him. He had his mask on so she couldn't really tell on first sight if he was unconscious, but the relaxed look on the rest of his face proved so. His arms hung limply at his sides, and he didn't seem to be resisting the strange force that was pushing him around.

_Funny, he looks a lot like a drowned fish. If any existed in the first place_.

With a little more effort on her part, Raven managed to reach the unconscious leader. Grabbing his shoulders, she started to shake him as hard as she could. It was difficult because of the lack of energy in her body, but she _had _to wake him up. He would probably know what to do in this situation.

Robin's finger twitched. Heaving a sigh of relief, Raven bent her head close to his ear and said, "Robin?"

The leader made a strange noise before muttering, "Ermph."

"Robin, wake up."

"Errmph?"

"Robin, look at me. We are in a little situation right now."

"Errrrrmph..."

"Wake. Up. Now."

Robin blinked, struggling to open his eyes. On seeing her face, he managed a small smile. "Hi, Rae."

"Hi, Boy Wonder. Any idea where we are?"

Something seemed wrong with the leader. Keeping the dazed smile on his face, Robin replied tiredly, "No idea... don't really care..."

"Hey, don't fall asleep on me. Wake up."

"Don't worry about me, Rae, I'm doing good," Robin _still_ had that weird possessed smile on his face. "Just need to sleep a bit... just a bit..."

Raven started to get a little worried. Robin _never_ wanted to rest. Something in this place was making him lose all his energy, and it wasn't good. "Robin, I need you to focus."

To her horror, Robin looked like he was getting paler. If his smile could look any more dazed, it just did. "Rae, I can't. I just need to rest... am tired..."

"No, no, no," Raven said quietly, watching as all colour drained from the leader's face. Was he turning grey? "Robin, this is not you. Wake up, Rob."

The leader was slipping away from her again. She could feel it. He stopped responding altogether, his smile fading away as he slowly drifted back into unconsciousness.

_For Azarath's sake, I can't fucking let him lose it here. Not here, dammit_!

And strangely, she felt a sense of desperation deep in her heart. She couldn't lose him. Not now. Not in this way. There were things she knew about him, things she _wanted_ to know about him...

What Raven did next was something she never thought she would ever do. It wasn't planned, but neither was it totally unintentional. In usual situations, she would follow her rational judgement. But somehow, _something _in that strange place made her choose differently. She worked on her gut instinct for the first time in her life.

In one swift movement, Raven placed her palms on Robin's cheeks and pressed her lips to his.

The feeling was explosive. Something flared inside of Raven, and a strange burning sensation filled her. She could feel her hair flying up in one sudden burst like something had just exploded behind her, and she noticed Robin's cape shooting up in the same way. The faint glimmer that outlined Robin started to increase in intensity until it was a bright glaring light that she couldn't look straight into anymore. The outline expanded, growing so large until it surrounded them. Closing her eyes to protect them from the light, she held on to the leader for dear life.

Robin jerked back to his senses, his eyes widening as he came to terms with his current circumstance. Raven wasn't sure if he was going to accept the fact that she just shamelessly kissed him on instinct, but he didn't provide any resistance at all.

Slowly and hesitantly, Robin held Raven to him as the ball of light swallowed them whole.

* * *

><p>Raven shot up, and instantly hit her head against the doorknob of the cubicle door behind her. "Fuck," she seethed, her head throbbing from both the bruise and the grogginess that still dogged her.<p>

A woman exited a cubicle beside her, shooting her a curious look as Raven sat with her back against the door, taking deep breaths to calm herself down. At the sight of Raven's face, the woman immediately smiled widely.

_What the... Do I know her_?

* * *

><p>Random Girl number 5 was overjoyed. The fight with the slut had been worth it. The prey was right here. Waiting for her to come and collect her in all her gothic perverse glory. She knelt down beside the cloaked hottie, her eyes drinking in the sight before her. "Hey, sweetie, nice to meet you again."<p>

The cloaked lady didn't look at her. "Do I know you?"

"I'm a little disappointed. Have you forgotten how hard I fought for you?"

"You what?"

"I _fought _for you. I sacrificed my beautiful ears for you. I - "

"Your ears?"

"Yes! My beautiful ears!" Random Girl number 5 hissed. "I can't believe you are pretending not to know me, you ungrateful little slu - "

Her words died in her mouth as the girl turned to look at her. It was a... dead expression. It wasn't even a glare. It was a look that said something like I-don't-really-give-a-shit-about-you-or-your-life-but-if-you-want-to-waste-my-time-on-you-I-will-kill-you-and-your-family-and-your-little-kitty-too-while-I'm-at-it.

Raven looked at the woman before her with no comprehension at all. She wasn't really registering what the crazed woman was saying because they were hardly of any importance to her, but the way the woman was waving her arms about flamboyantly was proving to be a rather annoying distraction. Her head was still spinning, and she was in no mood to entertain this person's antics.

And then she remembered. Drifting around in limbo with Robin. Kissing Robin. Feeling Robin's hands on her waist. Being blinded by some light.

And then waking up in her own body.

She stared at her hands confusedly. She was back to normal? How? What made her get her body back?

And why did she kiss Robin? Why the _fuck_ did she do it? And why had she felt happy when she did it?

Getting to her feet, Raven stumbled to the mirror in front of her, breathing slowly through her mouth as she took in the sight of her face once more. She never thought she would appreciate her own face this much. But that was a long time ago. A crazy incident ago.

She could feel the woman's gaze on her, burning into her back. She didn't even need to turn around to know it. "I don't know who you think you are, but it's rude to stare."

The woman's mouth opened and closed repeatedly as if words were going to come out. She made a weird strangled sound.

Raven turned around to glare at the staring woman, starting to lose her patience. "Beat it."

With a little fangirlish squeal, the woman dashed out of the washroom as if on cue, her eyes dancing with a strange excitement that seemed to come from nowhere. Raven sighed, turning her attention back to the mirror. What had happened?

_Okay, I'm in a toilet. That's where I last blacked out. But something's different._

Raven thought back to the strange woman who talked about her ears. A woman walked out of the cubicle, so that could only mean...

_I woke up in the female toilet. I'm pretty sure I entered the male one just now. I even checked._

So that could only mean two things. One, her body somehow made its own way to the ladies' to collapse there because it knew it would be more convenient for its owner.

Or two, the one which made a lot more sense, was that Robin had been in this toilet before he switched bodies with Raven. But this toilet looked very much like the other one she had been in.

Did that mean Robin was somewhere nearby?

With a little gasp, Raven dashed out of the washroom, looking around frantically for any sign of Robin. There was none, except for the fact that she came face to face with someone she never expected to meet.

Beast Boy grinned at her, his green face holding a little tinge of red. "Rae? You finished hiding in the toilet?"

"What?" Raven asked stupidly, trying to understand the situation at hand.

"I saw you go into the toilet, you know, didn't know what you wanted to do in there, you know, 'cos before that I saw two chicks fighting over you, you know, it was _crazy_, like, you know, absolutely - "

"Chicks? _What_?"

BB dragged her by the hand towards the entrance to the dance floor. "We ain't finished here," he hiccuped, "still gotta dance. We still gotta dance."

"No, I don't want to..." Raven said desperately, trying to push his hand away. She was so tempted to use her powers to throw him off, but doing so would just attract unnecessary attention. There were so many people here. What was BB doing here? And what had Robin been doing with him?

_Oh my god. Robin's going to find out I went on a date with Starfire on his behalf. This is bad - _

"Are you alright, friend Robin? You look pale." Raven stiffened, whipping around immediately to see Starfire leading a rather dazed Robin in the same direction towards BB and herself. _No no no I have to hide..._

Robin looked up then, and their eyes met. Raven saw his eyes widen and his mouth opening to form a sentence that she was sure was going to be directed at her.

She quickly grabbed BB's hand and pulled him in another direction, away from the duo behind them. "This way, BB."

The drunk BB hardly provided any resistance, and he seemed to be having trouble forming sentences properly. "Why... where... fun over there!"

"No, BB, it's _not _fun over there, we have to leave."

"Don't wanna, just starting - "

Raven yanked on the green changeling's arm again. "We are leaving."

"You," BB pointed at her. "No fun. Boring Rae. Rae Boring. Raebor."

Raven wanted to kill him. "Shut up and follow me."

"Raebor. Raebor. Raebor." BB said incessantly in a badly imitated robotic voice. "Like spoilt Cyborg. Raebor. Raebor."

Raven didn't bother replying. Just as she was going to reach a door on the side, a dancing guy in nothing but a pair of sparkly pink shorts crashed into her. "Sorry, my dea..." he frowned at her. "Oh, you're a girl. Never mind. Look over here! A cute green hunk!"

_Oh no, he is not going to take BB away - _

It was too late. In a flash, BB had managed to worm his way out of her grip and was prancing off with the crazy guy in pink shorts, his arm around the guy's shoulder. Raven had a really bad feeling that BB had no idea what he was getting himself into.

Someone grabbed her by the wrist forcefully. Barely able to hold it in anymore, Raven gave a soft growl and prepared her powers. If it was that stupid staring woman again, she was going to give her something to think about.

She turned around to come face to face with Robin. _This is not good_.

Without saying a word, Robin dragged her out of the dancefloor towards the exit, past all the jeering suitors who were rather disappointed that their prey were hetereosexuals. When they reached the outside, Raven accidentally stepped onto a puddle of rainwater on the ground. _Great. Absolutely great._

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Robin finally spoke.

"What just happened?" His voice wasn't as cold as she expected it to be, but it was still icy all the same. It was the I-know-you-did-something-wrong tone.

"I have no idea," she deadpanned.

"Why are you here?"

"Why are _you _here?"

"Don't answer my questions with questions. I don't have time for that."

Raven looked away. "I was out with Starfire."

"I can see that," Robin snapped. "I'm asking you why you were out with her. In my body."

"Look, I didn't know what else to do. She asked me to go out as a final request, and I had to say yes. She's a team mate, for goodness sake. I can't just coldly reject her and let her sit around being depressed. I had to let her get over you. If that's what you wanted." The last part came out as an uncertain and nervous mumble. She had no idea why.

"And you never thought that this so-called 'final request' will just end up making it _more_ difficult for her to let go?"

Raven gave Robin a disbelieving stare. "Are you trying to be funny? I _knew_ bringing her along with me will put her off. I agreed to this so that she will realise what an asshole I am and give up on me!"

Robin slapped a hand to his forehead. "Thanks for thinking so thoroughly, but your grand plan backfired."

"Backfired? I don't understand."

"Starfire just spent the last five minutes telling me how she loves the recent change in me and how... refreshing it was."

Raven slumped. "You can't be serious."

"I am. I hate to admit it, but I am. Do you have a brother? Starfire would probably be interested in dating him if you have one."

She glared at him. "This is no time to joke around, Robin." Giving him an accusing look, she continued. "And what were you doing here with BB?"

"He asked me to come over with him," Robin said matter-of-factly. "I had to keep an eye on him."

"In _my _body?"

"There wasn't any other way. If he came here unsupervised, God knows what he might do."

"He's already drunk."

"That's fine. He's the least of my worries right now." Robin looked at her levelly. "Why did you kiss me?"

The question hit Raven like a blow. She didn't know how to respond in a way that would fit her demoness nature, but no rational thought was entering her head at the moment. "I... just thought it was right. At the time, I mean."

Robin raised an eyebrow at her. "At the time?"

"When you were losing your mind," Raven said defensively. "I had to wake you up."

"Of all the ways - "

"That I could have woken you up, I chose the worst of the lot. I know," Raven sighed. "That sounds so much like you."

"I was thinking more along the lines of 'interesting'."

Raven stopped. "What?"

"You know, Raven, the number of times you ask 'what' can really outnumber the number of years dinosaurs lived."

"You exaggerate."

"No, I don't. But that's beside the point." Robin said. "Why did you decide to kiss me? You could have hit me again, like you did last time."

"I just didn't want to."

"Didn't want to?"

"Why are we talking about this, Robin?"

"I'm just curious."

She paused. "Robin, don't ask questions you don't want to hear the answers to."

"What if I want to hear it?" Robin was standing closer to her now, his face inches from hers. "Tell me."

Raven shifted uncomfortably at the close distance. She didn't know why he was doing this, but she also didn't know why she wasn't moving away either. Both of them stood in that position, staring at each other without embarrassment. "It felt normal," she murmured.

"Normal," Robin repeatedly quietly, never breaking eye contact.

"And appropriate."

"Appropriate."

"Okay, maybe it was something I wanted to do."

"Something you wanted to do."

"Don't be a parrot." She mumbled.

Robin smiled. "I'm a perfectly normal functioning human being."

"I don't understand why we are having this pointless conversa - "

The distance between them closed.

And Raven finally understood why she kissed him in the first place.


	10. Chapter 10

They broke apart after a few seconds, both parties panting heavily as they stared at each other. It wasn't really much of a wow-that-was-absolutely-brilliant stare from Raven, but more of an oh-fuck-I-just-made-out-with-our-team-leader kind of stare.

It was pretty much a stare of horror and disbelief.

"You know, at the way you're looking now, you are starting to make me feel like some sort of freak," Robin said carefully, looking away to avoid Raven's horrified gaze. "Does my breath smell bad or something?"

Raven fought to regain her composure. It was harder than usual, much to her annoyance. When she opened her mouth, she realised her voice was still slightly shaky. "Um, no. Of course not."

Robin raised an eyebrow at her. "Then?"

"I'm still trying to process how I ended up kissing you." The words flew out of her mouth before she could even think. There was an awkward silence between her and the leader as she mentally kicked herself for her stupidity. Now if she could just find a hole somewhere to crawl in and die...

"Are we honestly going to have the post-kiss rationalization talk?" Robin groaned as if she hadn't said anything that stupid, running a hand through his hair.

Raven smiled faintly. This was the old Robin again, the one who knew how to get out of difficult situations in the easiest way possible. "Why? Feel hurt?"

"Ouch," Robin affirmed, putting a fist to his heart exaggeratedly. "Right here."

"Shut up," Raven replied monotonously, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice. "Don't play cute with me."

Robin dropped his fist and waggled a finger at her. "I'm sorry, you're not allowed to use that word on me. It insults my male dignity."

Raven scoffed at his arrogance, relaxing as the awkward situation diffused. "I don't really need to care when your male dignity is concerned, since I've seen nearly everyth - "

"Raven!" Both Raven and Robin flinched as Beast Boy's voice wafted towards them from the crowds. Cursing inwardly, Raven turned to find the green changeling strolling towards them with Starfire in tow. He seemed to have sobered up a bit, although he was still flushed. _This is not good. _Raven watched nervously as the duo make their way across the room towards them, a multitude of excuses for their presence running through her head. She could somehow tell Robin was doing the same too, at the way he stiffened and pursed his lips. The very lips she made contact with just now. _Oh my god. I can't believe I'm actually replaying some romcom scene in my head when we are in so much trouble._

Beast Boy stopped short at the sight of Robin, paling visibly. "Uh, Rob?"

Momentarily surprised at Beast Boy's tone, Robin exchanged questioning glances with Raven before answering, "Yes?"

"W-What are you doing here?" Beast Boy stammered. His eyes widened in realization as he turned around to look at Raven accusingly. "You ratted on me! Even after I told you not to! Rae, I can't believe you betrayed me - "

"What?" Raven asked, confused. At the way Robin stiffened again, she could tell he knew what Beast Boy was talking about. Unfortunately, she was clueless. "I have no idea what you're talking ab - "

" - I thought you were my best friend, you evil demon - "

" - out, I didn't even know you were here - "

" - you brought Starfire too, didn't you? I can't believe it - "

"Friend Beast Boy? I came with Robin - "

"OKAY, SHUT UP!" Robin yelled, glaring at the three of them. Raven closed her eyes resignedly. _Here we go. _It was about time he resumed his leadership duties.

"You," Robin pointed at BB. "Are in big shit. I know you planned this behind my back, and no, Raven didn't say anything, I happen to have sudden telepathic powers, okay? Yes, I'm telling the truth. I even know you nearly brought Cyborg along on this merry date. Don't ask me how."

"How?"

Robin refused to answer the question. "And you," he turned to Starfire. "Shouldn't be in a place like this. It looks fun but it's not. Trust me. And what you saw in me, it's all fake. I was putting up a show, but I can't go on anymore. Not this way."

Starfire's face registered a nearly non-existent form of understanding.

Beast Boy's face brightened. "So you're really gay?"

"_No,_" Robin seethed. "For the record, I'm not gay." He shot a glare at Raven, who quickly ignored it.

"Now, we're all going home. Raven and I need to tell you guys something." As Robin stalked past them towards the door, he muttered to Raven under his breath, "LGBT? Seriously? You didn't think of dragging her away?"

Raven shrugged her shoulders, following him as he walked out of the club. Now was the time to face the titans.

* * *

><p>"This better be good, Rob," Cyborg grumbled, shifting restlessly on the couch. "My baby needs fixing."<p>

The titans were gathered in the living room, with Beast Boy, Starfire, and Cyborg seated on the couch. Robin was standing in front of them, his arms crossed as he leaned against the wall behind him.

"Your baby?" Starfire asked Cyborg, her eyes brightening.

"Car," Cyborg replied patiently, raising his hands as if turning an invisible steering wheel. "Baby equals car, car equals baby."

"Stop teaching her wrong things, Cy," Robin said tiredly. He looked pointedly at Raven, who was trying to blend into the back of the couch where she was standing. Feeling a bit guilty, she gave him a small encouraging smile, hoping he would be able to cover everything with as little collateral damage as possible without her help.

Her lousy attempt at a smile didn't work. "You might want to come up here to help me out a bit," Robin said sarcastically.

Sighing inwardly, Raven trudged to the front of the couch, positioning herself just next to Robin. She felt awkward standing in the middle of the expectant stares the other titans were giving her, and she forced herself not to pull her hood up. She had to help Robin in this.

"Okay," Robin took a deep breath. "Rae and I have had a little... problem recently, and we just managed to, uh, resolve it. We don't think it's fair to keep you guys in the dark about it, so we're going to tell you now. And what I'm going to say is all true, so please try to believe me. No, BB, I'm not going to announce that I'm gay, because I'm not."

Beast Boy slumped considerably.

"Approximately eight days ago, we had a body switch. We don't know how it happened or why it happened. All we know is that both of us were doing our own things in the Tower, and we were forced out of our bodies in a split second. I was in the training room and Raven was on the roof at the time of the incident. We met up in the training room after the switch and tried figuring things out from there. Hence, the messed up room. It was my fault, Cy. I'm sorry."

Cyborg seemed too stunned to accept the apology. His face reminded Raven unpleasantly of the moment when she had to grope Robin.

Robin went on, undeterred by the titans' confused silence. "We've been trying to live as each other for the past few days. Star confessed to the Raven version of me, and by the way I still have no idea why you two were in that god forsaken club. Beast Boy dragged the me version of Raven to that same club." Beast Boy flinched, his face showing some nervousness. Raven realized Robin had conveniently left out the part about her telling Starfire he was gay. He probably didn't want the trouble.

Raven finished it for him. "We just got back our own bodies in the club. We don't know how." She didn't want to risk him telling the titans about the kiss. She wanted to keep it her own little secret. Even though that made her sound like a love sick teenage girl. And Starfire was probably still dealing with the revelation that she had just confessed to a girl.

Robin didn't question Raven's hasty conclusion to the explanation. "So that's what happened. Any questions?"

The titans were still staring at them slack-jawed. It was a while before anyone spoke up, and that was Cyborg. "Fuck me, you guys should have worn name-tags."

"Eight days?" Beast Boy choked. "That was like thirty one, no wait, thirty two times I asked the Raebin hybrid if he was gay!"

"You can address me as Robin, thank you very much," Robin scowled.

"Thirty two?" Raven raised an eyebrow at Robin.

The leader's scowl got deeper. "Four times a day. I'm not kidding."

"Ouch." Raven suppressed a laugh, which she knew was the last thing she should do given the situation.

Starfire looked at the two, her mouth opening and closing as if she was going to say something. Raven felt a deep sense of guilt at having confused the poor alien, who had no clue what was going on at all. In fact, she had been played for a fool. Without thinking, she walked over to Starfire and laid a hand hesitantly on her shoulder. It wasn't something she would do at all, but she felt that she owed it to her. The alien deserved this much. "I'm sorry, Starfire. I didn't mean to trick you in that way."

The alien smiled weakly. "Do not worry, friend Raven. I do not feel sad at all. Is that strange?"

Any sane person would have said no. Saying it wasn't strange would have made everything more light-hearted, and any normal human being would have tried to comfort the alien by saying that no, she wasn't weird, in fact, she was doing the right thing.

But Raven, being the demoness she was, didn't have human thoughts like that. She replied truthfully, "Yes, actually."

Cyborg and Robin glared at her. Only Starfire laughed at that, her face relaxing into a happy expression. "I thought so too!" With that, she glided away happily towards her room, leaving four very dumbfounded titans behind.

There was another long silence.

"Okay, someone explain to me what just happened?" Beast Boy complained. "I thought we were talking about some body switch thing! Why the whole unnecessarily confusing and pointless conversation?"

Cyborg shrugged. "No idea." He rubbed his chin pensively. "Rob, do you really not know why you switched bodies with Raven and not anyone of us?"

The leader sighed. "No clue. I don't even know _how_ we switched, much less - " He froze. "_Oh._"

Raven perked up at his change of tone. "Figured out something?"

"Rain." He turned around to face her. Looking full into his face nearly threw her back into her fangirlish memories of kissing him. Throwing the thought away, she focused on the topic at hand. _Rain? What does rain have to do with all of this? _

And then it came to her. The rain when she was meditating on the rooftop eight days ago. The raindrops pattering on the window of the toilet in the club.

Robin laughed helplessly then, leaning back against the wall. "I can't believe it. And we spent hours in your room reading about supernatural fairy tales."

"Fairy tales?" Raven felt slightly insulted. "When you see Trigon again, remind me how fairy-like he must be."

"Excuse me?" Beast Boy cut in. "Can someone explain to me what's going on? Were we supposed to get the answer to the world just by hearing the word 'rain'?"

"The rain made us switch," Robin said. "We switched back because it rained again."

"You still don't know who changed you guys?" Cyborg asked doubtfully.

"Not that we know of," Robin replied resignedly. "We thought it might have been Puppet Master, but he's as good as dead from what I know."

"That's it," Beast Boy threw his hands up in the air frustratedly. "I've had enough of this mindfuckery. I'm going to sleep, and when I wake up tomorrow, you guys better be wearing name-tags."

* * *

><p>When the titans retired for the night after that, Raven went back to her room, sinking into the pillows gratefully. Relishing at the feel of her own body again, she quickly crossed her legs and held her hands in the meditating position. This was something she missed so dearly.<p>

As she allowed herself to sink into her thoughts, a sharp knocking on her door snapped her out of her peace. She glared daggers at the door. Why couldn't people just leave her alone? Especially when she just got her own body back!

Stalking to the door, she pressed the button, preparing her most unfriendly look to whoever was on the other side. Until the door swished open to reveal Robin.

Whatever Raven was prepared to say got stuck in her throat. Looking at him just kept reminding her of the kiss, and the more she remembered it, the more she wanted to relive it. Swallowing nervously, she poked her head out of the corridor to see if anyone was passing by before allowing the leader in.

Robin walked into the room, collapsing onto the chair in the corner as if it was his room. Well, it did use to be his room. For eight days. "You're not afraid Cy's going to walk into your room since he probably knows the code anyway?"

It wasn't a very smart question, but Raven answered it anyway. Anything to make the mood less tense. "You know he doesn't dare to enter my room. It's still a living nightmare for BB and him."

A small smile touched Robin's lips. It disappeared in a flash. "Okay. I just thought I'd come by and get some things straightened out."

Raven found herself holding her breath. Was this the part where he said the kiss was an absolute mistake? That he couldn't muster the courage to tell her he was sorry for leading her on? She kept her face emotionless. The very thing she was excellent at.

"I'm sorry," Robin started, his tone hesitant. Something heavy seemed to settle into Raven's chest. She knew it. This had to happen anyway. How could she even _consider_ kissing him just because she knew so much more about him in a span of eight days? It was embarrassing.

"That's okay," she said quickly, maintaining her neutral tone. "We can forget it."

"Forget it? I don't think this is something we can just forget."

"Then?"

"Actually, I was going for something more like 'I'm sorry but I really want to kiss you again'."

Raven's heart skipped a beat. Yes, her _demoness_ heart skipped a beat. "Oh."

"'Oh'? Is that all you can say?" Robin held up his fist and opened it, revealing a crumpled piece of paper. "I wrote a little script, but it turned out to be pretty useless." He flung the ball of paper into the waste bin with his normal impeccable precision.

Raven suppressed a laugh. "A script? Are you joking?"

"No," Robin said, looking a little offended. His face lightened up slightly, his mouth widening to show her one of his trademark smirks. "But I'm guessing you're not going to say no."

In a flash, he was in front of her, his face so close she could feel his breath on her nose. _It's going to happen again. I'm going to repeat the mistake of my life again._ "I'm not going to say yes," she muttered, unable to tear her eyes away from his mask.

"But you're not going to say no," came his reply before his lips came crashing down on hers.

It felt simply amazing. Raven didn't really know how to describe the next few seconds. It started with feeling the warmth of his lips, then his tongue, and then she just couldn't remember what she felt anymore. She was lost in the moment, lost in him.

And then the sound came. Raven wasn't sure if she heard it right, but at the way Robin jerked away from her, she was sure she wasn't imagining things.

It was, unmistakably, a thunder clap.

Robin glanced out of the window and then back at her, his arms still around her waist. When he spoke, his voice had a tone of finality and resignation in it. Raven's emotions mirrored his exactly. "Raven, you're going to have to promise not to use the toilet without me."

"You can tell me that later."

"It's less awkward to say it now. When you go back into my room, don't wear that pair of jeans you made me wear to the club. It's a sponsor's gift, I've never worn it before."

"It looks nice on you," Raven protested mildly. "Better than that traffic light suit you love oh so much." She could feel the pressure of the soul change on her mind, but she fought it, refusing to give in that fast.

She decided to keep talking to focus on him. "Don't make a mess of my room. Don't touch the mirror."

"I'm going to kiss you again."

Before Raven could ask why, they were doing it again. And then the blackness came, but also with the reassurance that they would have each other again anyway.

The rain would come again.

Eventually.


End file.
